Spiderweb
by Luss
Summary: The death of Harry Potter brought the skeleton of an empire. The falling of the muggle governments, his flesh. Blood, hunger, and the suffering of millions , created a black and swampy soul for the misshapen housing. Now, after a decade of existence, Draco Malfoy, spy if the Order of the Phoenix, will sacrifice all that he is, to demolish it. ( Harry and Draco acromantula)
1. When there's only one path left

Welcome to:

 **Spiderweb  
**  
Chapter 1- When you have just one path

Prologue

Harry Potter died one afternoon of winter war. Surrounded by red snow, frozen mud, and suffering.

Ten years had been born and died from that day, when the long darkness came. And even today, still, the events are remembered. Echoes that are forbidden to be speak about aloud.

Yet, they are whispered in the darkness of the night, when there is nothing to cling to beyond the hunger that bites your stomach, and the cold that makes your meat shiver. They are whispered in grimy alleys, and crowded sooty factories.

"The icon of light is dead. Press your lips and resists in silence, because nobody will come to end the suffering."

This is the mantra that all children of the new regime learn, almost suckled from their mothers' breasts.

A decade has passed since then. Ten years is a long time, and it has transformed the wizarding world into a community harassed by poverty, tyranny, taxes, and martial law. When food is scarce, morality becomes a good too expensive to maintain. Theft, prostitution, murder ... have become the daily bread, of every grimy fateful day.

And yet, the wizards that exist in misery, clawing for a piece of something to put in their mouths, console themselves with what little they have.

The vision of a muggle crawling pathetically behind his master, is enough to remind them that their fate could be worse. Creatures like animals, less than slaves. Ancient humans, crawl after their masters with their heads down, and shoulders slumped. Decimated to be no more numerous than wizards themselves, they have been molded in the flesh that sustains the regime on their backs. Labor for sale, for those who can afford it.

And who has the wealth to buy their own share of skin?

Death Eaters.

Sanguinary supporters of the regime. The bones of its structure, and its most violent whip.

Men and women who can be seen patrolling on brooms, hidden inside of expensive horse carriages, palanquins and elegant cars. Always high, icy, rich and cruel. Every day more numerous, and more powerful.

They've taken everything.

They have it all.

No wonder, then, that so many young men and women, are willing to join their ranks.

When the prize is to escape hunger, and enter the select circle of banquets, parties, meetings, plays, concerts, recitals ... that such admission asks the sacrifice of your own soul, begins to not seem so expensive.

No, it is not uncommon to see one renounce his humanity, and surrender to servitude with the Dark Lord.

However, these new recruits will never reach true power, not any political position. Those are for the inner circle. The wealthy elite, heavily militarized, and with white hand to exercise "justice".

The new nobility.

Formed by the most loyal, most powerful, purest families. Those with the fickle favor of Lord Voldemort. With his approval, and under his orders, this elite controls the ministry, the schools, all institutions. All decisions are theirs.

But the really powerful, true thoroughbreds of this new world, their favorites. That family considered royalty itself;

Are the Malfoys.

Perhaps for this reason, his betrayal, was even more surprising.

The betrayal of the only son of the family.

The betrayal of Draco Malfoy.

 **oOo**

Chapter 1- When you have just one path 

It was a night of blizzard, and fog tinted silver by moonlight.

Hogwarts could be seen from afar, like a lighthouse made of dozens of windows, spilling the warm golden light of fireplaces and torches, into the night. But the heat they gave did not go far, and it didn't reach the fields around the old school, where the spectral brightness of the moon, and the huge, pale snowflakes, falling from the clouds like ghosts, were all there was.

The thick white crust, more ice than snow, covering land and stunted leafless trees, had the depth of several years of uninterrupted winter, to hide the stones and roots, that could become hidden traps.

Although tonight, no one seemed ready to fall into them.

It was quiet, even the air wasn't moving. Even the lake in the distance, looked like an inert and rigid thing, stuck under an ice sheet meters deep.

Only someone who put special attention, would have detected a slightly darker than the night around him, black silhouette.

A man, hidden among the craggy rocks of the hillside, and the folds of his thick coat, who didn't look away from the path that ran parallel to the dark forest; a squiggly line, almost indistinguishable in the snow, no one used.

The man knew it was quite possible he was there wasting time, curled up in the bitter cold, waiting for the appearance of someone who could not come.

But his instinct said, and still they had not failed him in his many years of life, that soon, his prey, without other way to the last bastion of the light, would have to go through the twisting path, just below his position.

If he had escaped the first trap in Malfoy Manor, that was.

But to trust that someone like him, that had successfully spied the dark Lord and survived all these years, without raising suspicion, didn't manage to escape from between the teeth of the initial stocks, it would be stupid.

And if he had fled, the blond man, would come to warn the Order, of the spy in their own ranks.

"Of me." - The curve of his lips twisted in a gesture halfway between a scornful smile, and a grimace.

And his gaze drifted down the road, following a small movement beyond the line of twisted, thorny trees, as infery fingers emerging from the ground, that marked the edge of the dark forest.

Surely it was only some snow falling too laden branches ... But despite everything, he could not contain the beginning of a shudder.

The inside of the forest could only be guessed, darkness all that could be seen. Although he did not need to see, to know, as everyone knew, that the darkness hid the last redoubt of magical creatures.

No one who had ventured into its depths after the start of the war, had returned alive. His remains, devoured by who knew what creatures, appeared later at the forest's borders, unrecognizable except for the remaining clothes… if there were any remainings at all.

Regardless of their origin, be them Death Eaters or members of the light. The result was always the same.

The popular belief said that at the beginning of the war, when the magical creatures were being massively hunted by both sides (in their need for spells and potions ingredients) they, diminished and terrified, had desperately sought shelter.

And the dark forest, a wild place, owned by atavistic magic since immemorial time, had opened its arms and offered protection. Closed his embrace around them, and since then, never opened it again.

Now the place vibrated by the magic of its inhabitants, every tree, every bush, every flower, was a fierce guardian, and a murderer.

He had heard stories of thorns sprung from bushes that drained the blood of their victims, trees whose roots trapped limbs and ground them to pulp and bone splinters. Common flowers, made poisonous.

But perhaps the most dangerous, were those beings who now populated its depths. Of these, little or nothing was known with certainty. What, or who, had joined the original inhabitants? There had never been a survivor to speak about them.

He looked away from the deceptive calm of the trees, and their rings of icy fog. But despite it, the discomfort remained.

He better tucked himself in his coat, and waited. 

**oOo**

(Draco)

Breathing was raspy in his chest.

The ice of the winter night air, felt like a blade on his skin, reddening his cheeks, and condensing his breath.

His left arm throbbed painfully.

His heart was pumping at a frantic pace.

He looked back.

Snow, and the vague silhouette of the trees, was all that was distinguishable in the dark.

However, he knew that not seeing them, did not mean they were not there.

As if answering his thoughts, a blue lightning cut the night direct to his chest.

"Shit!"

He threw himself aside to avoid being hit, and only managing so through years of training, as the corner of his robe calcined, and part of the yarn fell into ashes.

He broke running again.

His muscles creaked, in the verge of collapse, but he ignored the warning. If he stopped now, he could well curse himself with avada Kedavra. He would suffer less.

He knew what awaited for traitors like him.

For years, he had witnessed, and participated, in dozens of those " _disciplinary sessions_ ". The screams of the victims, the smell of blood, burned flesh ... were things that still, sometimes, arose in his nightmares.

He was not proud of the fact. But it had been necessary.

Someone had to continue the work of espionage that his godfather, Severus, had been forced to leave.

A Bombarda spell went over his shoulder, and exploded a few meters ahead, in a violent cloud of snow and stones. Shrapnel hit him full, and raised cuts on his cheeks and clothes.

Blood began to slide down his face, thick and wet as hot wax. Mingling with the traces of ash and soot, already there, after his hasty trip by floo.

The snow dust came into his lungs and made him cough violently, threatening to choke him.

But he didn't slow down.

Much rested on him managing to reach Hogwarts.

He had to warn them of the danger. Someone had given away his position. There was a traitor in the castle, someone in a position of power.

Very few knew that he, Draco Malfoy, son of the right hand of Lord Voldemort, a member of the most trusted Death Eater circle, and one of his closest, was a member of the Order of the Phoenix since his twenty-first birthday.

Too much had depended on its reports to risk it.

Only the highest order members had access to such information; Dumbledore, his godfather Severus, and Lupin himself, were some of them. Which it meant that the traitor, whoever he was, was part of the same circle, or had found a way to gain information from a member.

Whoever he or she, was, could very well get away with destroying everything he wanted to protect.

He forced his pace even more.

His muscles were burning as ropes placed under too much stress, about to tear. His lungs strained, unable to take in more air, expanding the most they could, choking under the crazed pace, pressing painfully against his ribs. Some strands of hair had escaped the restricting black silk tie, and blond tresses stirred by the wind, hindered his vision, slowing his reaction time.

He had lost his wand in the initial attack that caught him by surprise.

Unarmed, wounded, the only thing still keeping him standing, was the adrenaline coursing through his blood, like a chemical bomb. But soon, even that would not be enough. His energies were scarce.

The escape from Malfoy manor had consumed almost all his strength.

Witness to this were the burns on his left arm. Now, thanks to Merlin, desensitized. Although he knew it was not a good sign. The mass of blackened flesh and cloth, mangled, charred, looking more like a tree branch than an arm, did not give him much hope. Possibly, even if Madame Pomfrey could deal with it in the next hour, he would lose it.

Snow sank beneath his black boots on fast crunches. Leaving behind a too obvious trail to follow. But he had no time to mask it.

They were too close.

Now his only way out was to be faster than them.

Suddenly, a series of screams broke the night stillness.

"There he is! Catch him! Lord Voldemort wants him alive!"

He cursed internally.

The shouts behind him reminded him a pack of hungry wolves. The sounds in the snow, while they shortened distances, that of a group of hunting dogs.

He turned a corner of the path ... finally, in the distance, through the snowflakes, the night, his own exhaustion… he could see the lights of Hogwarts.

The last refuge of the resistance in this world dominated by darkness.

If he could climb the rock hillside bordering the dark forest, he would be inside the magical barriers within the school, and safe. He held the sound of relief that he wanted to issue.

Draco started toward there... but something ... his senses screeched a danger warning.

The snow in the area, was dirty.

He strained his eyes. And there it was, a silhouetted against the light of the waning moon. If he had not known what to look for, he would have overlooked it.

Camouflaged behind the rocks, someone kept the limit of the barrier, waiting for the traitor.

Behind him, some lit wands pointed at him.

"Give yourself over, Malfoy!"

He ignored the shouts and swerved to the left. The only way left. All other sides surrounded by an increasingly tight encirclement of enemies.

The ground sloped down there, and at the end, only a few meters away, stood the edge of the dark forest.

The reason why they had not surrounded him on that side.

Everyone knew going in that direction would be crazy.

But Draco didn't have more choices left. It was that, or be captured.

And he decided to risk it with the monsters that would kill quickly, before those who would torture him for weeks.

 **To be continued**

Note: There goes the first chapter. It's short, but there would be more soon. This is a translation of an old fic I am trying to correct, and change somewhat. So posting will be fair frequent, at least until we reach what I have written so far.

See you soon.


	2. Blood

**Spiderweb**

 **Chapter 2- Blood**

He slipped on a patch of ice, and for one agonizing moment, feared he would fall. But he managed to painfully regain his balance, awkwardly skidding on the snow-covered slope.

His muscles were starting to fail him, and Draco knew he would soon collapse, torn by overexertion and injuries.

He was getting dizzy ...

The brutal beating of his heart inside his chest, his exhausted muscles, the shock, blood loss ... He gritted his teeth.

Surrender was not an option.

Before him stood the trees of the Dark Forest. Closer, closer as he ran. Soon, he saw well enough their twisted branches like skeletal fingers covered in thorns. The mist swirled around gray trunks covered by moss and black bark, crawling languidly in the dark and the cold light of the moon, which could barely penetrate the first tree line.

Beyond it darkness was absolute.

Unpredictable blackness that seemed to contain a thousand insect whispers, hollow murmurs, broken hisses. Death and agony, floating in stagnant, humid, air.

He felt his breathing quicken even more. A shudder violently swept the curve of his spine. The temperature seemed to descend, as he approached the place.

Behind him, the screams were becoming stronger, more violent, more urgent.

'They are afraid to follow me into the dark forest.'

Their terror, betrayed by the desperate barrage of spells.

Light rays and explosions, illuminated the night, trying to stop him at any price.

He zigzagged wobbly, barely dodging them. A feat more the result of luck, and the nervousness of his attackers,than of his exhausted reflexes.

His eyesight began to mist, Draco's head throbbed painfully, like something bloated and clumsy. But he didn't allow his pace to slacken. If he could reach the forest and hide in the fog, perhaps he could lose his pursuers. And if he didn't disturb the woods too much, perhaps they will not feel threatened enough to attack him.

A near impossible possibility. Noone who had penetrated beyond the edge of the damn place, following the closure of its frontiers, had survived.

It was a bad choice against another even worse.

And before being captured, tortured, broke down to the last bit of himself, and forced to reveal the secrets of the order ... He chose this. A way to die way to faster and less painful, than that which awaited him at the Dark Lord's hands. And one that wouldn't endanger his loved ones.

He passed the first line of trees, running with increasingly weak legs, and began to delve into the strange atmosphere without loosening his crazy pace. Stumbling against roots he could not see in the dark, slipping on snow and ice, about to collapse from exhaustion.

"Stop it Malfoy!"

The roar behind him was accompanied by a violent explosion, just half a meter from where he was. This time the spell was more powerful, driven by fear, and the desperate longing of the launcher.

The blast threw around rocks, pieces of bark ... snow powder that blinded him for a moment. As the strength of the impact threw him against one of the trees, with the force of a monstrous sledgehammer.

His spinal cord collided with a sickening sound of broken bones. His skull creaked ominously. His palms, in an attempt to cushion the blow, tore against the bark, spilling hot blood on the snow, and imprinting the red mark of his hands on the wood.

His left arm gave a howling whiplash of pain, and he would have screamed, had the impact not ripped away the oxygen from his lungs.

He moaned softly, as his body slid slowly down the bark to collapse in the snow. An icy mattress that eased, if marginally, the burning pain that consumed him. His eyelashes fluttered erratically, about to fall unconscious.

His brain seemed about to stop.

The blade of pain too aggressive for such battered housing.

His whole body was shutting down. The only clear feeling in the haze of agony, was feeling the wet snow that melted slowly against his cheek.

But…. the crunch of the footsteps of his pursuers, the sound of their sadistic laughter, the rustling of their robes...

'Dammit Draco, stay awake!' He shouted inside to wake himself.

Draco blinked, just getting back to reality.

"What do you think we do with Malfoy?" someone asked in a voice that reminded him, of something stale and dirty. "Why don't we have some fun, before handing him over to the Dark Lord?" Lust dripped from the words, like putrid mire. The chorus of nods and vulgar comments, made Draco frown in disgust, but he did not move, could not.

Hands grabbed him roughly by the shoulders, turning him, until he was left lying on his back, on snow and ice. Around him, like a pack of miserable jackals, he felt the presence of six Death Eaters.

The black robes silhouetted them against the white snowy atmosphere, and the shadows of their hoods, hided their faces and masks, making of them strange creatures, with barely any features, beyond the sharp curves of their lascivious smiles.

He offered them an icy stare.

Draco had spent years knowing this day might come, and had not sacrificed so much and fought to this point, to collapse now.

"Well, well, it seems he still has pride ¿e? We'll fix it fast" The closest jester kicked him hard, making the blond man take a sharp breath, struggling not to cry out.

Definitely he had at least one broken rib.

Then, metal shone suddenly, and the icy cold night lambasted his skin when the Death Eater ripped his robe in half. A cut that opened the fabric from his neck to the base of his pubis.

He cursed inwardly.

In his haste to escape from Malfoy Mannor, he barely had enough time to put on the robe. And unfortunately, under, he did not wear anything more.

'If I survive this, I will not sleep naked again.'

"What a delicious morsel. Dont you think?" For his unpleasant voice, Draco knew he was not more than thirty years. Cruel laughter erupted around him. That idiot, really, had made himself into the impromptu leader of the group.

"Come on! Teach him who's boss!"

"Tame him!"

"Let us hear his screams!"

At his companion's words, he puffed out his chest with undisguised pride, anf leaned over him.

Draco gave him a dirty look. The putrid breath of the man touched his face.

"Anything to say Malfoy? Or has the cat eaten your tongue?" he laughed at his own joke, while the others chanted obscenities, unaware of the subtle hand movement of the blond.

He had spotted his attacker's wand, poorly stored in the pocket in the heat of the moment. If he stretched a little more ...

Something moved in the darkness behind the Death Eater.

Draco squinted. Something ... something ... there was something in the fog. It moved languidly, lazy. He looked around. No one else had noticed, too absorbed in their triumph. He looked into the shadows again. As seconds ticked, there were more and more of those strange movements.

He felt his breathing quicken again, and his lungs painfully press against the sharp edges of his broken ribs.

'Idiots! They have forgotten where we are!'

"Malfoy Wh …?" his terrified gaze must had caught the notice of the man... too late. The movement behind them, solidified into thick bushy roots of long spines, sharp as pikes. The first attack curled around the man looming over him, in a fast movement like a that of a snake.

The roots surrounded his torso, thorns tearing the soft flesh of his stomach. Blood splattered the snow violently ... and the Death eater's guts gushed atop Draco.

A waterfall of disgustingly sticky, hot and red, organs.

Still squirming, trying desperately to escape, roots ripped the man off of him, dragging him into the darkness. His howls lasted a moment longer, then they went out with a muffled chirp.

The others shouted.

'Too late.'

Chaos erupted in the clearing.

More roots came from other trees, but this time the Death Eaters were ready. For what they were not ready, it was for acromantulas. Huge spiders the size of small dogs or horses, which took down the branches hidden in the dark.

They fell down on the invaders with jaws dripping in poison. Spitting sticky webs, trapping them, devouring them alive. The horrible screams of their victims filled the clearing.

Draco could not stop shaking.

Three more fell in the first assault of spiders. Their howls ignored by the two companions who were still standing. Too busy trying to escape.

A cutting spell reached one of the spiders, severing two of her legs. Her greenish blood melted the snow beneath her as she emitted a strange high-pitched sound of pain. Half hiss, half squeak.

The Death Eater smiled victoriously... maybe too soon.

Long, elegant, powerful spider legs, climbed down behind him. Draco held his breath as the new arachnid came to the light of the moon. His chitin, dark and shiny as obsidian, spectrally reflected the light from the night star. His powerful jaws, shiny with poison, clicked. The rest of spiders gave way to him, respectfully, retiring in a wide circle, expectantly. He was as big as a small dragon, and his long, powerful legs, had no trouble in knocking down the intruder.

The Death Eater rolled, terrified. Casting spell after spell at the gigantic acromantula. But his curses dissolved on his chitin, as if they were water.

The arachnid lifted one of his legs ending in sharp points, like blades, and impaled him from side to side, as a scholar impaled pins in his prized collection of insects.

The man gave a single torn howl ... and went limp.

The last Death Eater, terrified, completely surrounded, unable to escape, mad with despair, raised his wand ...

"Avada Kedavra!" he cried shakily. Green lightning struck the large acromantula ... and dissolved in the air.

Finally, l wide-eyed, the man raised his wand one last time ... and his body collapsed on the floor. He had preferred suicide to be eaten alive. Draco did not blame him. Having had his wand with him, he might have done the same.

Spiders launched with squeals, to devour their prey. Crunches from bone, squishy sounds coming from flesh and muscle that tears, the smell of blood, the last small desperate cries of agony, of those who were still alive, filled the small clearing.

Now he was the only one still alive.

Draco knew it was only a matter of time that some of the spiders came for him. And he knew he could not escape.

He exhaled shakily. The pain, the shock of what had happened, fatigue ... he seemed unable to stop shaking, and began to feel his head heavy, like stuffed with cotton. Gradually his mind was fading. He blinked languidly, grateful. At least he would not suffer if he fell unconscious.

Small, new, snowflakes, began to fall. Slipping quietly into the night, slowly covering the bloodstains. Touching his fevered skin in delicate strokes.

A gust of breeze ruffled his hair.

Immediately, the huge acromantula straightened, tense. He raised his head as if he had sensed something. Draco saw his jaws click once, nervously. And he turned his head toward him. His bright green, intense, deep, eyes, nailed on his. There was in them a strange intelligence, that made the blond shiver.

'A spider with green eyes?'

The creature turned on his legs, and moved cautiously to halt in front of him. Looking, studying him.

By then, Draco was so tired... The spider bowed his powerful head, poison impregnated jaws brushed his neck. They were cold and slippery. He could not help shaking even more.

"Malfoy?"

Finally darkness engulfed him.

 **To be continue**

Note: Here we go, starting with the dark themes bit by bit. It will be getting darker as the fic goes on, I thought I should warn you... Again. Just so you know… no one ends hating me for the things that are to come. _ :)

And if you are reading it with your heart full of evil glee, welcome new happy reader. Hope you enjoy the ride.


	3. Acromantula

Welcome to:  
 **  
Spiderweb**

 **Chapter 3 - Acromantula**

Plop.

Something cold fell on his forehead, slided down the curve of his temple, and ended on his hair. Making Draco shiver at the unpleasant, and uncomfortable, feeling.

He was barely awake, worn out ... so tired...

He curled up, languidly, among the blankets, burying his nose in their warmth, with the lax tranquility of a winter animal, and refused to open his eyes.

Plop.

This time the icy drop fell on the base of his skull, slipping an infinitesimal thread down his neck, and leaving goosebumps in its wake.

Waking him up a little more.

Just enough so that his instincts, almost silent under layers of warm sleep, vaguely woke, telegraphing a pressing murmur: 'Something is wrong, something is wrong. Something's not right …'

It never was so hard to wake up for him, never was so hard to think in the morning.

"Something... What?" ... He opened his eyes tiredly. And discovered that, indeed, something was very, very, wrong.

The huge oval around him … wasn't like any place I'd been.

Wet, natural, gray stone walls, taken by slippery lichen, and thick deep green like-velvet, moss, seemed to stretch away into a disturbing darkness beyond the spectral greenish light emanated by strange luminescent fungi.

Small green fluorescent fungi, climbed the floors and ceilings, entwining together like the strands of a carpet. Creating a light spongy crust, which made the sharp stalactites from the ceiling, and their contorted natural spirals, into lamps of strange beauty. And the ground, into something more like the image of a barely remembered dream, than a real place.

An unusual, but still, somewhat, recognizable landscape.

"A cave?"

His voice came in a crackle. Parched from thirst and lack of use, releasing a creeping discharge of pain, through the battered walls of his throat.

He brought a hand to his neck with a low moan. And instinctively reached for his wand ... only to realize that what in his dream he had taken for the covers of his bed, were nothing but pelts. A huge pile of stacked animal skins, someone had piled as a bed.

And that wouldn't have disturbed the spy.

Had it not been for the state in which they were.

The pelts, savagely torn from the body, showed tears wherever they had been brutally separated from the flesh. The marks of the wounds that killed those animals, easy to see, as maps of primary blood thirst.

The dry substance permeated it all, the smell was unbearable.

The atmosphere stank of death. Pain. Horror. The perfume of a carnage that he knew from battlefields.

Yet, this was different, this was not the result of a war, it was the work of a monster.

And the notion caused disgust and intrigue at the same time. What kind of creature could have done something like this?

Unconsciously, he brought a hand to his chest, where his heart beated madly.

And his fingers ... stroked a sticky substance.

"What…?"

On his skin, wrapping his torso, palms, sliding down his thighs ... was a kind of bandage, a curiously strong flexible white film. He wore nothing but this, however, his mind did not register the fact he was naked. Because he had just realised what was that thing.

"Spiderweb?"

As a student of one of the greatest potion master of the last century, he knew well the properties of the spider web, and the qualities it had to stop bleeding, and for the application of some healing balms. Which might explain why he was wrapped in it.

What he didn't know, was what kind of spider could have created such a thick cloth, to serve as dressing itself.

"Spider…"

Something clicked in his memory.

Suddenly, the memories that had been buried by exhaustion and shock, in his barely conscious state, re-emerged in a wave that made Draco dizzy.

The flight from Malfoy Mannor, the desperate race through the snow, the bombarda spell, the lascivious smiles, Death Eaters, roots, shouting, spiders ... no, acromantulas.

A spider big enough, to generate the cloth that he had been wrapped in.

Shiny obsidian black chitin, under the spectral moonlight, powerful jaws dripping with poison, intense, intelligent green ... eyes.

At that moment, almost unconscious, unable to move, he had seen the arachnid hovering over him. A black and monstrous shadow, that should have devoured the spy.

The memory was fuzzy, barely present. He thought having listened to the acromantula talk ... but he couldn't remember ... And the fight ... he had the notion of having seen the Avada Kedavra slipp, harmless, against his chitin ... but such a thing was not possible, right?

And yet, against all logic, he was still alive.  
Confused, Draco pushed aside the memories.

He had to stop thinking about it, when he didn't even know yet, if he should feel relieved to be alive.

Who had saved him from the actomantula, and why?

He looked around again, this time more carefully.

With a more clear head, finally, his assessment of the place, revealed details he had previously overlooked.

He seemed to be at the end of a tunnel, or of a net of them, was not sure. Revealed by how the walls, and ceiling, met in this area.

The notion that the air was not tainted, which meant that he should not be far from the surface. The fact that the place was mostly clean, which seemed to say that this shelter was used often, if not daily.

His inspection, from his position still lying down, did not reveal much more.

It seemed he was alone.

He could not be sure without a detector spell, but having lost his wand, this was the most he could get.

'I have to find out what happened.'

He thought about taking the risk, of waiting for the one who had rescued him. Surely he, or she, would come back to deal with him, after saving his life. Be it to help, or to put him in the Dark Lord's hands, in exchange for the reward, he knew, probably weighed on his head.

But Draco could not risk finding an enemy, even when the fact he was not restrained in any way, spoke of good intentions.

He needed to warn the Order of the danger lurking among them. Could not wait until his rescuer came back

Avoiding leaning on his still terribly bruised left arm, and still weak by not fully healed wounds, he tried to get up laboriously. Little gasps of effort, escaping from between his dry lips.

"You should rest." The words, smooth spoken in a deep male voice, suddenly broke the silence of the cave, startling him.

The tone was strangely hissing and a little clumsy, as if the man was not used to talking in this language, but somehow ... familiar. A shiver ran through Draco's nerves, like hundreds of insect legs.

There was something in that voice that unnerved him ... and appealed to him.

Still, the memory of it was slippery, he could not pick it.

"Who ... ?" His throat, still sore, barely managed to intone the word before breaking his voice in a violent coughing fit, that made the blond collapse back into the makeshift bed, limp.

"I told you to rest." Exasperation and irritation, dripped from the edge of those words, dipped in sarcasm that could only be personal.

But Draco could barely catch his breath, let alone realize it, or incorporate enough to see where they came from.

At his collapse, the broken ribs brushed his lungs in a violent scrape, that made him convulse.

Oxygen was burning his insides every time breathed, turning his breath in a succession of desperate moans, almost completely chocked.

Pain seared his chest ...

In his mind, he barely registered a strange sound, like something hard crashing gently against, mossy, damp stone floor. Rhythmic sounds ... getting closer, and closer ... that eventually stopped beside him.

He could feel he was being watched, as he struggled to breathe, and listen to the murmur of a healing spell, spoken almost reluctantly. But he needed all his concentration to keep breathing.

Finally, slowly, the attack eased under a reluctant magical presence, that hardly helped enough to stop the feeling of asphyxiation.

Exhausted, and with the feeling of having more in common with a frayed piece of wool, than with a man, Draco rested limply in the skins, just trying to breathe normally.

All his joints seemed stiff, his muscles sore, after the agonizing experience he had just suffered. Draco was reasonably sure, that it was not just one, the ribs he had broken.

'I need a medi witch as soon as possible' thought to himself. But at least, he no longer felt as if the air he was trying to suck, burned inside, with each new, desperate, inhalation.

He blinked languidly, trying to focus his gaze on who had saved him.

Silver gray, met with intense and hard, like colored glass, green.

Black chitin, burnished like polished obsidian, under the spectral greenish light of fungi. Long, powerful, elegant legs, finished in tips as blades. Powerful jaws drenched in poison.

Looming over him, stalking him ... the great acromantula of the clearing watched him.

Draco's breathing quickened, and blood threatened to turn into a wild roar in his ears... somehow, in some small corner of his mind, he acknowledged that the shock and blood loss, were converging into a panic attack.

And immediately, he raised his occlumency barriers to stop it. The firm walls Draco knew so well, arose around the edges of his mind, like a dam.

'Calm.' He told his mind, and the turbulent waters of his thoughts, became a calm pond of clear water.

The memories of the desperate cries of the Death Eaters, while being eaten alive by a dozen acromantulas, passed briefly through the surface of the pond, but he firmly pushed it to the background.

If the arachnid wanted him dead, he would be by now. If he were storing him for food, like many spiders were accustomed to do, he would not have been so carefully bandaged, nor kept in what could not be anything other than the nest of the huge spider.

The tip of a leg, thick and black with chitin armor, landed on his torso, forcing him to remain lying under gentle pressure, though Draco had not moved.

He remember how that same leg had staved a man from side to side, and it served to remind him, of what kind of creature he was facing.

Draco kept his gaze steady.

The spider snapped his jaws in disgust.

"I will not devour you." he hissed, as if he needed to reaffirm his intentions with words.

The contempt and disgust in the tone, surprised the blond. It was almost as if the creature regretted not being able to do it, and hated him for it. Or as if the creature kept a grudge against him, and this only exacerbated it.

'Ridiculous, I had never before encountered an acromantula. He has no reason to hate me. Unless he hates wizards as a whole.' Which, considering what would a wizard do, if he had access to a member of the specie, it was very probable.

Various potions that employed acromantula parts on their recipe, brushed his neurons.

Reasons that made even more strange the affirmation. Why not eat him?

'I need answers.' And fast.

He could not stand still when so many lives depended on the information he had.

The spy narrowed his eyes, studying the creature with the patient calm of a snake. If the acromantula was able to speak and understand, then he must be able to convince the arachnid, of letting him go.

"Are you the one who saved me?" Draco made his voice steady, sure.

Because showing weakness to a predator, only served to be seen as prey. But show him strength, firmness and security, and you may gain his respect.

His gaze searched the arachnid's, making no effort to free himself from the weight of his leg, as if he did not care the least, that the limb rested upon his vital organs.

Projecting himself like someone strong, someone at the same level of the spider. But carefully, without being too rebellious. No prey, but not a threat either. An equal.

It was obvious that Malfoy was nervous, he could smell it on him, under the essence of the rancid dried sweat of the race, the clotted blood from his wounds, and the maddening scent of his pheromones.

Pheromones of his own specie, but mitigated by some kind of spell.

He breathed deeply, vaguely surprised that Malfoy was able to hold his gaze, and not start trembling under the kind of pressure, he knew, he provoked. Some improvement from the coward and whiny teenager, he remembered from his years at Hogwarts. But ... could he had expect something different?

'Of course he has one can become a murderer, and still remain a child.' The hardness of the tone, was a sudden burst of red thorns in his mind.

Thus, having Malfoy lying down and shirtless, let him see perfectly the mark on his right forearm. That black mark, in contrast with the pale, silky skin, which was the statement, announcing to the world, what the man who was carrying it, had become.

A lackey of darkness, a Death Eater, a murderer ... a wizard after all.

All wizards were murderers. The difference between Death Eater, and member of light, was merely superficial. He knew it very well. He knew-it-very-WELL.

And he would have found special pleasure in killing this particular one, had he not needed him so much.

Fate was a cruel and deeply sadistic lady, but he had known that since childhood.

That from all the people in the world, who could have been appropriate, it had to be him, it was nothing more than a few more grains, on a mountain too large, for a few grams to make any difference.

The really important thing, was that he had found Malfoy.

And he would use, would take, him, in any way he wanted, even if he had to force the blond. And he did not lie to himself, it will have to be by force. Malfoy was a tool, and one that he could not afford to let go.

The arachnid noted that the young Death Eater seemed to be waiting for something, and realized he had been deeply in thought, and had not answered his question. Annoyed, he shook his head.

"Yes, I'm the one who saved you." As he spoke, the creature watched the man coldly, admiring, in a critical way, the broad expanse of his chest, narrow waist, and long, muscular legs.

Malfoy was attractive, that was true, he had the athletic physique of a runner, or of a Quidditch player. His hair and skin, as pale as the calcareous sediment from the edge of the lake. And years had put a hard look, who spoke a great resistance, in his eyes. Taking this all into account, he thought the blond would be ... appropriate, for what he needed.

But that did not make the choice more bearable.

He appreciated that the wizard was wounded, and would need a few days to recover, so he could harden himself for what had to be done.

Malfoy's injuries, although serious, with the curative salve he had applied, would not take longer to heal.

And when that happened ... he snapped his jaw nervously, and looked again at his prey.

The old slytherin seemed to be studying him, as if trying to find the best way to approach him. He was probably thinking about how to get out of there.

'In that case, I'd better make things clear.' The words of satisfied cruelty, had an acid aftertaste.

He increased the pressure slightly.

Draco gasped.

He could hardly breathe. His lungs pressed painfully against his broken ribs, threatening to pierce the soft organs. And if that happened ... he would die.

He coughed weakly, unable more. Resisting would have been useless, and would only have infuriated the arachnid. So Draco stood still, despite the threat of panic.

He continued looking at the other directly, showing that he was not afraid, despite being aware of his strength, and the very real possibility of death. But he did not think the acromantula would have saved his life, to kill him now.

The old slytherin seemed about to choke. But he was keeping his gaze despite everything, firm and quietly. If only in appearance.

He knew internally the blond was on the verge of a panic attack, the notion very sweet, like honey over the years of taunts and cruelties he had endured. And that brought him to the current problem.

'I tell him now, or wait his recovering?'

He was sure that Malfoy had no idea that his blood was not as pure as believed. Especially, considering that the spell he could feel surrounding him, acting as a barrier against that part of his blood, which was not fully human, was a very old one, with years, perhaps decades, of existence in the body of the slytherin.

It was no mystery why he had not laid hold of his true nature, to save himself. He didn't even know existed. If he had known, he could have asked the acromantulas for help, and they would have given it on a silver platter.

He frowned, or the arachnid equivalent.

That was a problem.

But one that had easy solution.

"I won't kill you." he said, and eased a little of weight, allowing the blond to breathe more easily. "I have other plans for you. Finite Incantatem."

A spell like that could never have been undone without months of hard work, study, and untangling of the magical knots that kept it. But he had a terrible, bubbling power, under his flesh, aggressive enough to undertake the task in a matter of minutes.

The strength of his magic reached the center of the seal, imprisoning the spider of Malfoy, and surrounded it with the intensity of a conflagration, tearing and biting with wild enthusiasm, to devour it completely.

Draco howled like an inhuman thing.

 **To be continued**

Note: Hi again, and hope you are enjoying this so far. It's going slowly and without much darkness so far, but give it a few more chapters and you will probably hate me. XD

So, I'm not a native English writer, and even if I'm learning, I still make lots of grammar and spelling errors. That's why I'm searching for someone willing to do beta work for this fic, and if possible, to undertake the gargantuan work of editing Dementor kiss. I know it's a lot of work to do, so I'm sorry to ask, but if there's someone willing I will greatly appreciate it.

A, I speak Spanish, so if the one who wants to try, speaks it too, and is willing to explain to me my grammar errors so I can improve, it would be the most fantastic thing.

Thanks, and read you soon.


	4. Father

Note: Hi again, and thanks for your kudos and comments.  
This chapter Harry may seem bipolar, or like he can't make sense of himself, but I promise it has an explanation later on. Into other themes, next chapter there will be rape, just so you are warned.

I think I must warn you all, again, I'm a truly evil and heartless writer, who does it to put out stress. And because I'm addicted to the thig feeling it grips me, every time I'm writing something truly horrible, and I'm about to cry. It's fantastically liberating, and it leaves me light. So yea... That's that. XD

If you are sensible people, you should probably not read this fic, ever.

Welcome to:  
 **  
Spiderweb**

 **Chapter 4- Father**

'What has he done to me?'

What had the monster done to him? What had he done?

He could not move, could not stop shaking. He was so ... cold ? hot ? sensations passed so quickly from one to another, it was impossible to know.

A new shudder made him groan, and Draco shrunk tiredly on itself. A movement born of reflex, more than of conscious thought.

Too exhausted to try anything else.

He felt another arcade painfully made its way up his throat, forcing him to cough up a thread of dyed-red bile.

It trickled down his chin, sticky. His stomach, empty, had nothing else to give, and the effort of coughing up the mucosa, made the pain intensify. It felt, as if his stomach, had been rubbed inside with salt.

Still, his body continued to convulse, again and again, trying to expel something that could not be vomited.

The arcades loosened slowly, but the agony did nothing but grow and spread to other areas: his throat was scorched by the bile he had expelled. His stomach so empty and aching, felt like an animal gut hung out to dry in powdered chalk. His mind was cloudy with fever...

His thoughts, scattered, sought the elusive memory, of the only other fever that had plagued Draco, with such virulence.

He had been seventeen.

For a month he stayed in bed, throwing up every few hours, sometimes minutes, almost unable to keep any food, too ill for anything other than sleep. Draco had laid between life and death.

Scorching heat and terrible cold, like now, had light up his nerves with constant fevers, that made him tremble violently. A feeling, agonizingly similar to this, making his skin tight, as if it would break by invisible seams.

He vaguely wished it was not the same disease. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to think, stay aware and focus, on nothing but the blazing fire in his veins.

The first time the disease had almost killed him.

He remembered his mother by his bed, marked lines of worry and anxiety, on her beautiful face. Her increasingly blurry, pale and desperate semblance, as his energies went out...

A long parade of mefi-wizards that only managed to further deplete his meager forces. And his father ... his father constantly there as a silent, watchful, and protective, presence ...

Until that night, when he heard the voices of both his parents, raised violently in a discussion he did not understand.

The memory was washed away, and it was more a cluster of vague feelings consumed by the disease, he could barely gather. Yet, he was sure that at some point, her mother was gone, because he had not smelt her warm floral perfume anymore.

He was lifted in his father's arms. Warmth, the gentle voice of his father, smelling dust, rough, cold stone, under his limp body. And he thought ... Draco was not sure, the rusty smell of blood.

Everything else was blurry, and then the smooth darkness of unconsciousness.

In the morning he woke up in his bed, mind clear as had not been in weeks, without fever or pain. Only a slight vague fatigue, and hunger result of long subsisting on soup, tea, and milk, nipping playfully at his belly.

He never asked his father, what he had done to take him from the brink of death.

Only black rituals could return a man to health, with such unnatural ease.

Yet, the disease would have killed him, if his father had not done so. And Draco could not blame Lucius, not hound him with questions whose answers, he knew, he had not been prepared to listen to when still a teenager.

Not at the time, when Draco had still been, in many ways, a child.

He had preferred to remain in ignorance.

And then, years later, when he had already been an adult, to understand and accept the answers, a dark ritual had become such a minor offense, in light of all that he had already witnessed in the war, that it had lost all importance.

But now, this second time, his father was not here to save him. And have he been, discovered Draco's betrayal, Lucius would not have lifted a finger for him, unless it was to curse his son.

His guts contracted and churned like snakes, taking the spy out of his revery, with another groan of agony between clenched teeth.

Something was beginning to swirl in his lower stomach, creating in his mind a picture of a bloody, swollen and ulcerated, mass. It was getting worse... his kidneys ached, his legs felt swollen to the point of pain, but did not look bulky at all.

A sharp, new, temperature change, swept through his veins with the most intense seizure so far, and when darkness tried to take him away, Draco let it drag him into unconsciousness.

Thankful not to have to stay awake.

 **oOo**

Harry looked at pale like ash fingers, tangled in fur, clinging tightly, as Malfoy panted, curled up in fetal position even after fainting.

There was cold sweat on his forehead, sticking his hair to his cheeks and neck, and sliding down his skin, to build up between his shoulder blades, in the hollow of his collarbone, soaking the skins.

Malfoy looked at the very limit of his endurance. His body unable to take changes, that were too radical for someone his age.

The metamorphosis should have happened in his adolescence, when the body is still malleable, flexible, and is already experiencing its own changes.

The spell that Harry had broken so eagerly, had not been hiding his true nature, as he had believed, it had been stagnating the mutation. And now, retaken in a body already formed in the final step of maturity, it demanded changes too violent, for something not ready to cope with them anymore.

Changes healing spells were insufficient to amend.

Malfoy would die.

When the forest needed him alive at all costs.

Harry snapped his jaws.

In the woods, there was only a single being, with magic powerful enough, and the knowledge, to save Malfoy.

'I must take him father.' He closed his eyes tightly, almost aching with the decision. Not wanting to.

The health of the Great Spirit was already precarious as it was, asking him to spend more of the little power left to him, to help a wizard… It was blasphemy ... but ...

'It's the only way.'

A new cry of pain, made him look again to his former enemy, now limp in his nest.

The greenish light of fungi, made his already pearly pale, and glistening with sweat, skin, look even more discolored. Spectral, ashy.

Spasmodically, the blonds muscles moved under his flesh, as his breath came shorter, and shorter. The wounds were threatening to reopen, despite the spider web that enveloped them...

The skins that covered the battered slytherin, seemed coarse and abrasive, against his naked body.

Malfoy was faltering, and the changes had not even begun to affect his appearance. If he didn't get help soon, the overwork would kill him.

He did not have time. They had no time.

The arachnid closed his eyes.

Another part of himself, imprisoned by thick mental barriers, received consent to manifest, and the chains fell off, allowing its return to the surface.

It came to the front of his mind, with the same natural elegance and power, of a dragon taking flight. He felt the man's personality, the remains of the Gryffindor, the human, completely seize control, by pushing the beast, the fierce murderer, to the shadows of the back of his mind.

His body changed to suit the new matrix, like a snake emerging from its old skin.

Bones and muscles, organs… mutating quickly and gently, painlessly.

Then, Harry Potter... opened his eyes.

The icon of light stood naked in the place, where it had been, not a moment ago, the great acromantula. His short hair, black and wild, that looked to have been bitten off, more than cut, fell in uneven wild tufts, framing his face.

His eyes were still that luminous green, inheritance of his mother, who was unmistakable. Yet, its depths were darkened, inhabited by disturbing, impossible to clean, icy shadows.

Harry blinked languidly, (it always took him a few moments, to adapt after the change). Malfoy was still unconscious.

He nodded in satisfaction.

Currently, Harry didn't want to reveal who he was, or rather, who he had been.

He was no longer the skinny and frail boy, remembered by those who had called themselves, his friends. The last ten years had operated noticeable changes in him.

The development that began in his teens, had culminated in a height of almost one meter ninety, a powerful build of broad shoulders, and strong but flexible muscles. If someone underestimated him, they will quickly find how extremely easy, and painful, might be dying.

He crouched next to the other man, carefully removing the skins that covered him. There was no need to hurt him more.

At seeing him naked and sick, frail... Harry felt a pang of sympathy course through him.

Almost gently, he raised Malfoy's shoulders, picking him up against his chest. His blond head languidly fell on his shoulder. The blond shook convulsively in his arms. But when he passed his other arm under his legs, to lift him... the movement made his gaze fell in the dark mark printed on his arm ... And all compassion and kindness died in Harry, as he remembered.

Wizard.

With sudden determination Harry stood up.

And ran.

 **oOo**

Draco shuddered violently, when a new arcade tried to break through his throat, despite his stomach being already empty even of bile.

The pain briefly tore the veil of consciousness away, and made him aware of the arms that held him, the warm chest against his cheek, the rhythmic beating of a heart.

'Who…?'

He smelled sweat, but ... for some reason, it was reassuring. Confused, he tried to open his eyes ... but the malaise gripped him again with an internal flare, dragging him back, into the depths of unconsciousness.

Upon leaving the cave, the last light of evening was already fading behind the treetops, turning the snow that covered everything gold and red with sunset light. Even if it was only four in the afternoon. What little could be seen of the plants and trees, under the white blanket, was an ashy, withered and sickly, green. The animals and creatures in its path, in its race to the centre of the forest, seemed nervous, scared.

As always, the sight made him want to do something for them. And now, if Malfoy survived, he could.

His steps became more vigorous, his feet practically flying over the snow.

Until finally, he stopped in front of a green curtain of vines, thorns and mistletoe, so tight it seemed solid. No one who didn't known what to look for, would have differentiated this hollow area, from the stone wall around it.

"I come to see FATHER."

His tone, kind, hurried, made the plants open for him a path, with quiet whispers of welcome.

"Be welcome guardian. Be welcome."

Beyond the short tunnel, the heart of the dark forest opened.

The darkness was spreading slowly, turning off the last light of day. The fog began to come from the lake, extending through the trees, winding nebulous tendrils, between the roots and branches of the huge tree, overlooking the clearing.

The knots of the trunk, thick and elderly as huge rocks, spoke of old, more atavistic than human history could remember, times.

Its roots sprang from the bed of dead leaves at its feet, as immense natural bridges. Its branches, ancient, tired, bent toward the ground, laden with draperies of vines, mistletoe, and moss. All around, dozens of acromantulas climbed its roots and branches, silent guardians of the powerful magic that it kept.

As he was the great father of the forest, the first tree to rise on this ground, the body of an ancient spirit as old as the ground it sprung from.

And at his feet, between his roots, the only clean area of snow and vegetation, stood. A perfect circle of dried blood stained earth. An area that seemed to whisper with the powerful magic that emanated from it, like lilting water in a stream.

Sacred, the air seemed to moan.

Sacrificial altar, temple of miracles.

Spiders bowed to Harry as he advanced between the roots. The rustle of leaves and snow under his bare feet, the faint moans of pain from Malfoy, his own breathing after the race, the murmurs of the acromantulas...

"... Guardian ... Guardian, Guardian ... The keeper has come ..."

He bowed his head in greeting, watching the space around with reverence. Even after ten years, stepping on the most sacred place of the forest, quickened his breathing, bristled his hair with the brush of its power, made him feel lulled and loved.

It made him feel at home.

A sigh escaped his lips involuntarily. Draco seemed quieter here, too, not as shaky.

'This is my home.'

"My son, I was waiting for you." the spirit's voice, a whisper of branches swaying in the wind, made Harry immediately kneel at the edge of the altar. Draco in his outstretched arms, as an offering without words.

"Father." he muttered, and bowed his head to receive the caress. The tip of a branch brushed his hair, giving him welcome. "I'm ashamed to bring you a wizard. Please forgive me."

The branch stroked his cheek softly, reassuringly.

"You must not feel ashamed, to bring your chosen here. He's only what he is, because his spirit is still not free. Come, let him rest in my heart, and I will heal him. Much depends on you both."

Kindness, exhaustion, and affection, dripped from his voice, and made Harry feel, not for the first time, the almost convulsive need, to alleviate the burden of the great spirit.

'If I had known what was Malfoy before now …' But there was no use thinking about the past. It it wasn't late already.

No, it couldn't be. Not now when he had, finally, the way to deliver for the great spirit, a new and renowned life. He needed but nine months. Only that.

"Thanks, father." he whispered with resignation and relief. And carefully deposited Draco, in the bloodstained ground.

His pale body shuddered at losing his touch, as if, without Harry's heat, his veins ran cold.

Malfoy's skin had lost all color, ashen and as thin as tissue paper, under which he could guess, the delicate fabric of his purple veins.

His white as snow lips parted in a cry of pain, when small sinuous roots began to emerge from the earth around him, looking for his veins, piercing his flesh to get into them. Crawling inside, and mixing the powerful sage of the spirit with his changing blood.

Draco howled.

He writhed desperately, but the torturing tentacles continued undeterred, getting deeper and deeper. Almost unconscious, but unable to bear it, instinctively he tried to pull them out.

Harry grabbed his wrists, preventing it.

"Take it easy, it will end soon." the old Gryffindor whispered, almost involuntarily, though he knew Malfoy could not hear him.

The thing was, that seeing Malfoy suffering, awoke the memory of his own transformation, of how painful it had been...

Cutching his wrists with one hand, Harry stroked Malfoy's hair gently, as he would have done for a wounded animal, tangling free fingers in the thick blond locks.

"Sshhh, it will soon pass." - What was he doing…?

Draco groaned and shifted weakly. But gradually, his agonizing efforts to get rid of the tendrils, died down to nothing, as the scorching influence of the roots, was becoming a caressing heat source.

Finally, he fell still.

Heat gently rocked Draco. So nice, so sweet ... It whispered reassuringly, told him to surrender, that he would not be hurt, to embrace the changes it was bringing.

It felt so strange ... something inside him was mutating, adapting in terrifying ways that he couldn't understand.

It was awful, disgusting.

He didn't want it!

But the heat didn't stop pressing, like a spell that forced him to remain calm, motionless, letting everything happen without being able to oppose it. Frantic, Draco tried to resist, pushing the presence out of his mind with all his strength. But could not muster enough will to achieve it, it was too powerful.

"Sleep, my child, sleep now. When you wake, everything will be as it should be." The whisper covered him like a soft blanket, stifling his conscience.

"No! No, no, no ... .. n .." sleep washed everything away...

And Draco felt afraid of what he would see, when he woke up.

 **oOo**

Awakening was a slow and elusive process. Full of small pieces of information: The sound of his own breathing, the feel of fur under his body, fatigue languishing his muscles and making him want to go back to sleep...

However, someone was insistently carding his fingers through his hair, calling him awake, with little caresses.

And slowly, Draco found himself responding with murmurs, until finally, his eyelashes quivered, and his eyelids opened with sensuous placidity.

'Who I brought this time to bed?' he asked himself.

It must be a new lover, no one had awakened him this way before. But when he looked up, the creature before him, wasn't anything he would have called human.

He sat bolt upright, his mind, now filled with the memories of the previous day. What had the great acromantula done to him?! And what was the creature before him?

The creature was about one meter ninety tall, and his powerful musculature was humanoid, but covered in shiny black chitin, from head to toe.

The only parts dipped in colour, were his unnatural green eyes, and sharp white fangs dripping emerald poison.

Long fingers ending in sharp points like blades, similar to the legs of a spider. Short black and thorny, hair, framing an almost flat face, no nose. Huge eyes, oval, big, like those of a nymph ... or insect.

And yet, despite his frightening and strange, somehow, appearance, Draco felt ... attracted to him.

He swallowed.

The rational part of himself howled that this monster could be dangerous, and he was unarmed. And Draco pushed his instinctual attraction, down.

With slow deliberation, as not to warn the other, he turned away toward the edge of the skins, ready to make a run for the exit, if necessary.

He didn't kind himself about his chances in a physical duel with something of that size and constitution. After all, he just was a meter seventy-five. But perhaps if he could be faster. As his gaze drifted to the exit... the spy was grabbed by his arm, with the speed of an scorpion.

"Do not even try. You have nowhere to scape." that hissing voice… Draco had heard it before.

"What do you want from me?" he asked without giving an inch.

With this creature, as with the great acromantula, he knew that it would be unwise to show weakness. Even if his skin suffered a shiver at his touch.

"What I want from you?" the creature bent, almost touching his lips to Draco's. His voice full of contempt and hatred.

The worry, however brief and strange it has been, that Harry had felt for the blond, died at hearing the question. And the burning desire to help the forest, came alive in his arteries.

Malfoy, wizard, murderer, torturer ... and he remembered, he. remembered, Snape's apprentice too.

Potions Master.

Innocent creatures reduced to ingredients ... beings who had feelings and lives, more human than the creatures that thought themselves so. More than any wizard… sliced and dissected.

'He deserves punishment.' Harry knew within him a wave of poison and flames.

He squeezed Draco's arm harder, until he felt the bone about to break under his fingers. Suddenly, he brought his free hand to rest on Malfoy's pearly-pale belly, in a possessive caress.

This time Malfoy shook visibly.

"I want you to carry my offspring."

 **To be continue**.


	5. Seed

**Spiderweb  
Ladtheove**

 **Chapter 5- Seed**

Notes:

There it goes the fifth chapter, dark with rape as I warned. So if you are sensible, please, don't read.

On the other hand I have finally found a beta willing to undertake both 'Spiderweb' and 'Dementor kiss'. (A truly gargantuan work) So starting from this one, you will finally be able to read edited and corrected chapters, thanks to Stevie, the one brave enough to grab the hydra of my drarry fics and put them to right.

Thanks Stevie. 

**oOo**

Draco's reaction was instantaneous.

His knee connected with the stomach of the monster, stealing his breath and throwing the creature away from himself, long enough for Draco to escape the pile of furs.

'I have to get out of here, now!'

He ran through the network of tunnels without daring to look back, knowing he was staking it all on this chance of escape, in a mad rush towards the exit.

The monster had seemed insectoid, and perhaps he lived in a cave out of sensitivity to light.

If he was lucky, if he really was, that creature would be photosensitive, and would not chase him into the open. That was, if outside it was daytime. He could not be sure in those caves. And that was only possible if he was quick enough to get out of there before being caught.

Draco knew it was crazy.

That thing was a predator, knew those caves, and it was fast, very fast.

Draco was injured and in pain; wandless.

But he couldn't stay. He would not stay!

The memory of what insects do with their larvae- injecting them into other unsuspecting living creatures, so that they could hatch from within and eat the poor wretch, still living, from the inside out- sent a shudder through him.

The blond had no doubt about what the other would do, if he caught him. And he would sooner die.

So he forced his pace even more, despite how weak he was. His bare feet cutting themselves against the stone floor, his body resenting every step, reminding him of its just closed wounds. The exhaustion, the stress of the last few hours, panic, pain, anguish...

Hi whole body ached, as if his muscles, veins and tendons, were torn rags hanging on his battered skeleton.

Yet, Draco refused to crumble.

He ran through tunnels that twisted like snakes, sometimes opening into huge caverns, or shrinking into low passageways spaces he only could go through on his knees.

It was always illuminated by the eerie light of the fungi.

The soft green carpet crawled through walls and ceilings in the strangest hairy patches, whose sickly luminescence created shadows that were both ever changing and highly disturbing, between the naturally wet columns of stalactites and stalagmites. It was if it were all a painting of a place like that right out of a nightmare.

And that was how Draco felt- as if he were in a nightmare, trying to escape the monster of the moment.

He stumbled on the brink of collapse, the injection of adrenaline produced by fear beginning to lose its effect.

He grit his teeth against the pain, and forced himself to take a few steps more.

But he felt as fragile as an eggshell, and so very dizzy...  
He stumbled again.

And this time he could no longer go on.

His knees slammed into the stone floor, cutting them to shreds, and he could barely manage to stop his fall with his palms.

His arms and legs were shaking. In fact, he realized, his whole body trembled.

The winter air trapped in the caves was much colder than the in the outside, although in here the snow could not reach. The absolute lack of the warmth caused by the sun, the harsh stone walls with its luminous fungi, and the mugginess of the air had helped create an atmosphere like that of an enchanted cold box.

His muscles were seizing. His blood felt thick in his veins, as sticky as syrup, slowly sliding down his body in rivulets. He was suddenly warm…His gaze was clouding over...

He knew what the symptoms of hypothermia were.

If he didn't do something soon he wouldn't have to worry about the monster; the cold would end Draco before he could catch him.

With the last of his strength, he managed to half crawl, half drag himself, into a corner between two stalagmites. His best bet to keep warm was enclosed spaces. The small hole in the shadows had the added benefit of serving as an adequate hiding place, hidden from whomever tried to catch him.

Curled up on himself, knees firmly drawn against his chest, Draco adopted the foetal position in an attempt to retain the most amount of heat possible, and to become as small as he could, so as not to be seen.

However...

At first, the fatigue that was closing his eyes clouded the distant sound.

He was almost asleep, about to be carried away by the river of tiredness and the cocoon of cold, when his survival instincts- the ones that had saved him many times before- began screaming like crazy, forcing him to pay attention.

He soon realized that the noise was coming his way. A soft tap-tap-tap, like metal against stone. He frowned, trying to force his tired brain to focus, to remember. He had heard that sound before...

The sudden recognition made his heart quicken, as if he had undergone the charge of a defibrillator.

He was suddenly, painfully awake.

It was the sound of the legs of an acromantula against the rock.

oOo

(Harry)

Reverting to his spider form had taken him a while. Some minutes, one which Malfoy took advantage of.

But Harry didn't care; he knew his prey could not go very far in his condition.

The surprising thing was that he had had even the strength to try to escape.

In fact, it had been the surprise, and nothing else, which had allowed the blond to flee in the first place.  
Harry had been too perplexed, touching the place he had been hit, which didn't even hurt, to react when he had started running.

And now he needed to go get him. Tedious.

'Stupid, stupid, Malfoy. You couldn't sit still and make this a little easier for both of us, right? It had to be the hard way.'

He snapped his jaws and flexed his eight long legs, leaning forward imperceptibly to better perceive the trail left by his scent.

This was why he had changed.

This form gave him the sensitivity of a spider. He could smell the scent of Malfoy. Distinguish his breath in the echo of the caves, follow his trail as if he had written it on the floor with red paint.

'Stupid, stupid Malfoy.' As if he hadn't enough to worry about, what with the burden of so much responsibility.

Now, the Slytherin's actions were causing a disagreement between his base natures, which the day before had been in perfect balance.

His spider side found the attempt at escape intolerable. He demanded that Malfoy be made to bow down, be possessed, marked as his; for Harry to stablish their dominance in ways that were impossible to ever erase.

His human side, however, squirmed between compassion, (the result of having experienced the same agonising changes), and the visceral hatred of the man, (result of knowing what Malfoy was), and the memories of his ruthlessness at Hogwarts.

His consciousness as guardian if the forest roared against that unnecessary delay in what should be done. Reminding him of the danger such a delay could bring, and all that rested on him.

The small human part that pitied the blond man was lost completely and crushed under his base instincts, responsibilities, and hatred.

So when he found Malfoy cowering in a small hollow, trembling and defiant, despite the panic he could smell in him? The last thing in his mind was compassion.

oOo

(Draco)

He could hear the acromantula getting close.

It didn't matter how well he was hiding. Somehow, the spider seemed to know where to look.

Draco wanted to scream, could feel the sound, a challenge against the world, building up in his throat, so strong as to almost overwhelm him. But he swallowed it down with difficulty.

If he was going to die, he would do so with his head held high. Like the man he was, and not as the cowardly child he had been.

His only consolation was that it was the spider, and not the monster who intended to impregnate him, that was one coming.

The acromantula would devour him quickly, a far more decent death than that of agonizing for months with the knowledge that all the while a couple dozen larvae devoured his bowels.

Definitely better.

But the notion was of little comfort, when he remembered all the people who he wouldn't get to see. The ones in Hogwarts he had failed to warn.

With him dead, the danger posed by the traitor will continue to endanger them, making them vulnerable.

He blinked rapidly.

He wished he could have seen them, just one last time.

A shadow loomed over his hiding place.

The huge arachnid watched him with eyes bright as emeralds, as cold and hard as the gemstone itself, and were just as beautiful as they were terrifying.

What a strange thought to have in this moment.

oOo

(Harry)

Harry snapped his jaws furiously, stopping a few steps from Malfoy.  
Poison dripping from his fangs, as he hissed in a poorly veiled threat.

The wizard should be afraid. But the old Slytherin seemed at peace with himself, although, somehow, melancholic. Certainly not regretful of his try at an escape.

That did nothing but infuriate him even more.

"Did you thought you could escape me?!"

The vicious roar made Draco flinch, slightly sore. He was exhausted, emotionally and physically, and he just wanted peace. If he was going to die, he preferred to avoid the wait.

The spy gifted the spider with a bright gaze of determination. Still a spark of pride in his eyes, despite no longer having any hope.

"Finish me already." Draco's voice emerged crackled, at the brink of collapse, yet strong in its weakness.

Harry bore his fangs aggressively, torn between animal instinct and human feelings.

The desire to admire Malfoy for his integrity, and the instinct that demanded punishment.

However, above these two forces, the sense of duty prevailed; whatwas expected of him, what he had to do, was a physical force pushing him. It made Harry feel confused, almost crazy, for just a moment.

Until the order of his priorities remerged as a slap in his mind, making it clear what he had to do.

The idea made him nauseous, and yet there was a heat in his arteries that had nothing to do with hate. His rational mind began to dissolve.

Calling a fraction of his human nature forth, he anchored it to the animal lust, and let the resulting mixture emerge, to the horror of the young Malfoy.

Draco stifled a cry, a wail of horror, when he saw chitin, muscles, and organs, merge into a new mass, with a series of wet sounds that churned his stomach.

The changing shape revealed, with a strange metamorphosis like that of as larva, a new being before him. A monster he would rather not know.

And this time, he had no energy to run.

"No!" His complaint got silenced, as claws pushed him brutally against the stalagmite in which he was leaning, stealing his very breath.

Draco fought desperately, trying to escape, twisting and striking with all his remaining strength.

Trying with all his might to resist something he knew would be much worse than any group of Death Eaters.

But the monster was too strong.

oOo

Malfoy was frantic, fighting him as if he were willing to give up his last breath, in order to escape.

And Harry had more than enough of that.

Too much guilt for what he had to do, too much hatred for this young Death Eater, too much compassion, too much anger. All those feelings combined into a vortex that swept through him.

He grabbed Draco's hair, pulling his head back savagely, ripping a cry of pain from his lips.

Arching his neck into a painful curve on the verge of rupture, exposing the vulnerable column of his pale throat, covered in cold sweat, to his own hungry look.

Skin trembled under his predatory look.

Harry saw Malfoy swallow convulsively. Muscles and tendons flexed under the glossy surface, bringing the delicate blue veins to focus; incredibly delicious, viciously beautiful.

Unconsciously, dragged by the spider within him, Harry licked his lips, the tip of his black tongue caressing them briefly.

He opened his jaws, bending to smell the skin, nose barely touching the point where the neck meet collarbone; that fragile union of delicate bones and pearly softness.

The scent of fear, pain, and the challenge he posed filled his nostrils, burning him inside, raising a primary desire he urged to satisfy.

It burned a dark blue blaze, like tongues of fire on oil, just as quick to spread, as difficult to extinguish.

He closed his jaws around that pale throat, fangs digging deeply, savouring the exotic blood, so similar to his own, and released his poison into those virgin veins.

oOo

Draco gasped, incapable of anything else.

Felt the first tingle of poison, spreading through his guts, traveling sharply through his blood, up his spine to his brain. Invading him with a burning languor that softened his muscles and soothed his nerves, forcing him to collapse into the arms of the monster.

Pupils as black mirrors, eyes dilated and captured under the influence of a poison deadly to any other creature that was not of their kind. But on him, made submissive by it, the effect was that of a strangely calming drug. Nothing but appealingly exotic.

So drugged was he that Draco barely felt when he was taken by the shoulders and forced to turn. His body was easily posed against the rock.

The monster was behind him, nibbling his neck possessively. Blood slowly slid down his neck in delicate drops that reached his chest.

The sensation sent a soft chill down his body. He felt relaxed, calm ... It was getting hard to think. But he knew there was something he was forgetting, something important ...

"... what?..." he stammered.

The hot breath on his neck moved to his ear.

"Do not move. Sssssh…"

Fingers slid to the sharp curve of his hip.

How did they get there?

Draco bit his lip, looking to the pain as a point of focus, so he could make sense of the cacophony in his brain ...

What conclusion he reached wasn't amusing.

The fear was still there, produced by the notion of what the monster meant to do, and it struggled to make its voice heard against the sensual feel of a tongue of silk, sliding down his spine, slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae.

"No," he managed to utter against the unnatural languor in his blood.

"Do not resist," the dark voice whispered. A deep growl lay under the words, designed to subjugate him completely.

Draco shuddered instinctively, gently, but did not let the thought he had managed to catch go.

Grabbing all the strength he still retained, he fought against the midst of honeyed warmth that was asking him to let go, and let himself be lost in its embrace.

"No," he muttered again. Still, the sound came out hot and panting.

Talking was like trying to swallow a small, slippery animal. He realized that his forehead was resting on the stone, in a purely submissive, involuntary gesture, but the feeling of the rock was nice and cool against his fevered skin ... and his body just was so heavy...

He was more forceful with his next push against the stone. The movement rasped his lips against it, a small flash of pain which pierced the fog that had nearly swallowed his mind.

Curling his fingers into the stalagmite to try and anchor himself to reality, Draco didn't abandon his challenging words.

Harry, who had been trying to control himself, felt his instincts as a predator jump at the smell of blood.

He growled like a beast establishing its dominance. His claws dug into the white flesh of Malfoy's hips, barely holding back the desire to break the skin, leaving marks that would later become violent bruises.

Signs of his possessiveness.

"Don't," he asked in an animal growl; words were getting difficult to remember.

Animal instinct intoxicated him as he lifted Malfoy's hips sharply, putting him in position that clearly showed who was the dominant one there.

Draco gasped. And he finally understood what the other really meant to do.

He would not inject his larvae into Draco… he wanted to fuck him.  
The fear that had been holding him eased a bit. The syrupy feeling in his veins seemed to melt and warm up with the idea, slip into his skull like honey tendrils.

Surely, being penetrated by the creature would not kill him.

Yet, it still wasn't something he wanted to undergo ... and the substance trying to force him to accept it, could go to hell!

He concentrated on the icy, and abrasive surface of the stone against his skin, threatening to lift scratches and abrasions if he moved too much.

And although he was barely able to speak, he would not be enslaved.

"No," Draco repeated again, against the air caught in his throat. Hot… so hot it burned.

The monster growled menacingly, the grip tightening until it hurt. The blond panted, sure that claws would break flesh, but they did not.

What they did was leave the curve of his hips, to put long fingers, covered with chitin, between his thighs. Forcing them open.

Saliva dried in his throat.

He pressed his digits against stone, preparing for the pain he knew was coming, with the same stoicism he had looked at the prisoners in the dungeons of the Dark Lord, there to be tortured.

'Perhaps this was his payment for not being able to do anything for them,' he thought, gripped by delirium.

It was becoming difficult to escape the poison in his system.

He could barely think.

Draco realized he was burning, truly feverish. Despite the cold in the tunnels, he was sweating. He could feel moisture gather on his back and on his forehead, sticking his hair to his temples...

oOo

The scent of Malfoy's pheromones was impossible to ignore.

Sweet, powerful, like sweet dark chocolate he had not tried for more than ten years.

Harry buried his nose in that throat, sticky with blood and sweat. The smell was delicious.

Desire, and the dark perverse sense of long-awaited revenge, rose the fiery tongues of his lust into a single bonfire. And when he pressed against Malfoy to inhale more deeply, he realized that he was tall and solid as a rock.

Fully aroused, despite the tiny part of human consciousness he could hear, vaguely shouting at the back of his mind, against what he was about to do.

But the instincts of the black widow were swallowing the voice with insulting ease.

He may later, as Harry Potter, agonize about what tonight was going to be done, but right now, the spider and the guardian held the reins.

'Mine, mine, mine, mine …' the spider kept grunting like a red mantra.

'Do it and save the forest,' was carved with steely determination in the mind of the guardian.

It was thanks to that trace of humanity that refused to be ignored that Harry sank his fingers in the mud that accumulated in the humid corners of the cave; a green, organic substance that slicked his phalanxes easily, and would slide between the buttocks of Malfoy, and make less painful what was to come.

Draco stifled a gasp of pain when wet and cold, fingers penetrated him.

The feeling made his stomach contract with nausea and disgust. At the same time, his skin quivered beneath a wave of honeyed warmth that seared his nerves.

The collision of the two sensations, so violent, made him weak. And if the monster had not been squeezing him so tightly against the rock, he would have collapsed on the floor.

'What has he done to me?!'

The substance in his blood, that poison ... panic, fear, terror... stabbed the fog in his mind.

His eyes glazed and everything went blurry.

He had believed his tears to be dry, since the years he underwent in the shadow of the Dark Lord, but this ... this was an emotional agony he had never been subjected to.

Unable to stand, he closed his eyes and buried his face in the rock, covering the tears that threatened to escape his eyelashes with the curtain of his hair.

He couldn't see anything, just feel how that ... being, used him.

"No," the blond whispered again, just, hating himself for being so weak, unable to do anything.

Because the poison was making the pressure of those fingers into something almost pleasant.

Harry ignored the smell of tears while preparing Malfoy almost abruptly, feeling him tense under his hands, even when the poison should have him groaning under his body.

Right now, in his mind, the primary, wild part, of the black widow, consumed him with the desire to make that pale submissive his.

Mark him, own him, take him.

He couldn't wait enough for Malfoy to relax. Lust was iron-hot in his lower abdomen.

He leaned even more on Malfoy, pressing his chest completely against his back.

Savouring the smell of fear and pheromones in the curve of his bloody throat.

He grabbed his hips, spread his legs and went in, with a primary roar.

Draco gasped, on the verge of a sob, but grit his teeth and took it. As the feeling of being slowly but unstoppably impaled invaded him.  
That hard as a rock monstrosity painfully carved a space within him

Not so much sensation as psychological torture.

It hurt, it was too big, but the heat in his bones did not allow him to concentrate on those feelings for long. And what could have been a truly torturous experience, with his body torn apart from within, was being marginally bearable. At least on the physical plane.

Mentally...

"Uhng …" Part of what consciousness remained of his mind cowered, whimpering, pleading to be left alone. But most of him remembered his pride, his integrity, and raged against being manipulated and used.

However, each rubbing of chitin against skin, made that part crumble into pure agony.

Harry gasped, and all his self-control vanished.

The feeling of that silky tunnel closed around his member, warm and throbbing, was crazy.

Draco felt perfect beneath him.

Submitted, infinitesimally trembling, panting, his platinum blond hair stuck to his cheeks and neck, as a last line of blood trickled viciously down the curve of his throat.

It was madness.

He licked the vital liquid, savouring the amazing taste, and charged forward with wild abandon.

Draco gasped. Finally, a broken sob escaping his bloody lips, broken under the pressure of his own teeth.

He could not stand it, could not. The trace of consciousness that he had been holding escaped through his fingers, and finally the honey on his head devoured him completely.

Everything stopped hurting, and nothing else mattered.

The wet sound of flesh meeting flesh, of heavy breathing, barely contained sobs, gasps of animalistic pleasure, melted into a symphony that filled Harry's mind.

He could feel the caress of the white buttocks against his testicles whenever he penetrated Malfoy to the hilt, the curve of his own claws holding his hips in place, as he moved inside him with increasing force, the taste of blood on the tongue.

He accelerated, taking him brutally, tearing a guttural strange sound from the blond. Pushing in and out of him faster and faster, harder and harder, until he thought he couldn't take it anymore.

His body seemed made of lightning, it felt like a hurricane about to break; he needed to break.

Harry increased his pace, putting the full strength of his powerful muscles behind each thrust, drawing Draco's hips near, to receive him deeper, forcing his legs further apart.

Finally, he impaled himself with all his strength one last time, his back beautifully arched, while a primary, brutal, and savage roar escaped his throat was left ringing in the caves, and his semen flooded Draco in an amazing and hearty burst.

Draco sighed, just as the monster's cum filled him, tears he hadn't felt fall painting fiery streaks down his cheeks.

There was so much, so much semen inside himself ... he kept thinking, a disjointed phrase that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. He was so tired ... it was so hot ...

Panting, Harry drew out, immediately putting his fingers in place of his manhood, preventing the seed's attempt to escape the body of the Slytherin. Quickly, with a whisper of innate magic, a little cobweb was conjured in which to seal him, at least until the next day.

The best thing to ensure that the impregnation was successful.

And finally, with a last whisper of magic, he plunged Malfoy into deep sleep. Now that his human part was awake, the last thing he wanted was to see his guilt reflected in those gray eyes.

To be continued 


	6. Your eyes

**Spiderweb**

 **Chapter 6- Your eyes**

(Harry)

He did not know how long he had remained sitting in the fallen tree trunk, listening to the snow fall from the branches around him, completely still.

Long enough for the black sky to begin lightening to a faded gray.

Yet, only now he was starting to recover his sanity. His mind had until that moment remained confused, but now was gradually regaining order.

The experience of intercourse had been so intense that for a few hours it had blurred the boundaries between his natures: the human, the spider, and the guardian, all resulting in a confusing amalgam of instinct, which was none of the three in singularity, but all and none at once.

Harry blinked languidly, not quite awake. Carefully, he extended a tendril of thought, trying to bring order to the memories of last night, as they were but a blur; a constellation of disjointed images, almost always meaningless.

He frowned.

Remembered the taste of blood- exotic, viscous, rich- filling his palate. The slender body subjected to his ministration, compliant beneath his. The silky tunnel around his member. Silver, sweaty strands, stuck against temples, cheeks, neck ... the acrid smell of tears.

He inhaled sharply.

The guilt was a violent slap that cleared his mind completely. Recalling the primal longing that had devoured him the moment he found Malfoy huddled in the cave made him sick.

He swallowed to contain the bile that wanted to rise to his throat, looking down to the dirty snow and his black chitin covered feet. It was a mistake. The sight of his footprints marring the perfect white surface, were all too telling in their metaphor.

He closed his eyes.

Although squirming between the teeth of his own guilt wasn't useful, he could not stop. What was done, was done. And nothing could change, delete, or alter it.

It had been necessary. But the way he had undertaken the task ... He should have been able to maintain control.

Although, had Malfoy deserved something better? He clenched his jaw.

Malfoy was a wizard, and one that had, at some point in his life, decided to voluntarily sell his soul to the darkness. It wasn't hard to imagine: the cruel and conceited student he remembered, growing and metamorphosing into a monster capable of murder, rape, and torture, for pure and unalterable pleasure. But even before that, he had been a pure blood. One who loved potions, he recalled.

If it had been any other, Harry would have devoured him. And that would had been that. But…  
But much as he wanted to make him pay ...

If Malfoy died, hope for the forest would be lost.

That was the center of his guilt, the guardian understood.  
So he would take care of the wizard, ensure that the darkness that the Death Eater carried didn't again touch anyone else. And in the future, put more restraint on the monster in himself, in regards to what concerned the Slytherin.

He opened his eyes, now calm and relaxed, their green depths wells of quiet poisonous waters.

It was time he explained to Malfoy his situation, and at least part of what was expected of him. The sooner he was made to understand that his human life was over, the easier everything would be. However, he would try to do it, a little ... softer than their last interaction.

When he awoke.

And after hunting.  
Soon the snow storm would worsen, and when it happened it would be almost impossible to find prey. If he didn't want, Malfoy, and himself, to go hungry, he should go hunting.

Harry stood up.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

Fatigue.

The notion entered his brain like an electrical synapse, turning on the machine of his mind.

He hadn't even know if he had been awake before now. But his eyes were open. Draco felt exhausted, in fact, on the verge of collapse. He analyzed himself a moment, to see if there was anything else.

Um ... definitely sore too, but not as bad as he could have. At least not in light of what happened. Of ... the memory came alive in his brain, barely lit. What exactly had happened? He forced himself to shape the words in the darkness of his mind.

He had been ... raped.

The spy swallowed, huge eyes, open like an owl's, fixed on the stalactites and fungal draperies of the ceiling. He was unable to bring himself to close them.

Would he see images of what was done to him, as spots revealed in the darkness behind his eyelids, if he closed them? He didn't know, he didn't want to find out.

He realized his breathing was getting fast and arrhythmic; small puffs, like the pumping heart of a bird. Panicked. He swallowed again, forcing himself to slow down and breathe deep.

Finally Draco blinked, looking around. His mind gradually regaining lucidity and control. Returning to normal. As if he had fallen into a deep well, and were now climbing back to the surface ...

He frowned when realising he had been in shock. Among the prisoners of the Dark Lord it was a usual malady, and easy to recognize; The slow ignition of the mind, stress, panic ...

'It's okay. What happened, happened.'

One of the few useful things of having had to witness, and perform, as many tortures, as he had, was having learned how a victim should react. The sooner you accept what has happened, the less the damage. Otherwise, fear and agony, could plunge you into a state of catatonia, that few recovered from. And if Draco Malfoy was something, it was a survivor.

Carefully, he looked around, searching for the monster.

But the cave seemed empty. No trace of the creature nearby. This made him relax a little, and finally the blond could breathe.

His knuckles ached.

It seemed his hands had been closed so tightly around the fur, it hurt. Carefully, he relaxed his grip, trying to relax and absorb what had happened. But not yet ready to relive the memories.

Needing to gather his remaining strength to think about what he would do now.

He had to return to Hogwarts. But ... Draco studied from the corner of his eye, the exit. Would the other be waiting outside, if he tried to escape?

The thought made him feel icy, chilly, as sharp as tentacles of jellyfish, fear threatening to throw him back into the darkness of shock.

He clenched his teeth together, pulling off the fear forcefully. If he was going to start flinching all over, he would never get out of there. And he had, long ago, left behind the cowardly and conceited part of himself, to revive it now after all he had gone through.

The experience had not killed him. Did it? If repeated, he would survive. Those who were really in danger were at Hogwarts.

This time the notion made his heart clench in his chest, as if to break and dissolve into dust. Maybe soon it would be late ... if it wasn't already.

The pain that possibility brought, was much worse than the fear of being forced again. And this, more than anything, was what pushed him to move.

He threw the skins that covered him aside, and began to rise. Slowly, so not to get dizzy, feeling his bones creak very weakly, his muscles relax while he uncoiled from his fetal position.

Tendons complaining about the overuse of the last two days. The small pain of the furs brushing his bare skin, touching the wounds still bandaged, and the new scratches and abrasions, adorning his flesh like purple flowers.

But when he sat down ... the position made him aware of what was still inside himself.

Moisture, heat. Something sticky and warm filling him. Merlin ... there was so much ... The nausea made Draco fold in half, his face covered with cold sweat, hands on his underbelly, where he could feel the seed of the monster clearly.

He groaned and shook, retching violently, but did not vomit. His stomach had nothing to give, painfully empty.

'What has happened, has happened.' was repeated like a mantra, over and over again.

Finally, he managed to achieve some kind of composure. Breathing somewhat agitated, but nothing else. A fierce and determined look, painting his face. Furious with himself for his weakness, and with the monster for reducing him to this. Using anger as a shield against the urge to simply collapse and mourn.

Gradually he started down the pile of skins, resting his feet on the cold rocky ground, and gathering strength before attempting to put any weight on his legs.

He clung to the stone wall, almost clawing at the cracks, and struggled to his feet.

"Okay. Here we go."

 **oOo**

(Harry)

The snow had begun to fall again, slowly, piling on more snow, and covering over the forest ... however, it was not enough to erase the trace of a lone deer.

Harry crouched, taking care that the wind didn't drag his smell toward the path taken by the animal, as he advanced.

Studying the almost invisible footprints in the snow, small broken branches, strokes on the bark of trees where he had sharpened his antlers ...

Suddenly, the cry of the forest grabbed him from inside.

"Death Eaters" The hiss came in his mind as words of acid.

Another patrol sent to capture magical creatures, potion ingredients for Lord Voldemort.

"How many are we going to have to kill for him to give up at last?" But the furious question was merely ironic. The Dark Lord could afford it, people threw themselves at his feet, begging for a place in his ranks. What did he care about a dozens dead, if he could get what he wanted? But Harry would make sure, he never did obtain anything.

He straightened, tense and alert, while changing his humanoid form, metamorphosing to the acromantula. The big spider looked for a moment in the direction where he knew his cave was, but had no time to see if Malfoy was still asleep. He would have to be trusted not to wake up, before Harry returned to him.

He walked among the trees with the agility of a predator, on his way to a new battle.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

Removing the piece of cobweb the creature had left behind, was easy ... and difficult.

Easy to rip and throw away. Difficult to endure the hot liquid that slid down his thighs, the second it was gone.

He used one of the furs from the nest to cleanse himself, as best as possible, but without water, the sticky dirty feeling of sweat and ... something else, was almost impossible to remove.

Avoiding thinking about it, Draco wrapped his body in some more furs, tearing strips of another to hold them in place. Improvising something to keep away hypothermia. Too well he could remember the chill in those caves.  
The most difficult task was bandaging his feet in leather, but the determination to get out of there, helped maintain steady his hands.

He started walking.

Advancing through the tunnels soon became a torture. The pain coursing through his body with every step, the cold that threatened to freeze his blood, just at bay thanks to the skins, the semi darkness with its shadows where the monster could be lurking. The intricate corridors and chambers ...

Draco didn't even know if he was taking the right course. But continued convincing himself to move forward. Force himself a little more. Walk another step.

Cold sweat adhered strands of his hair to his cheeks and neck, his skin felt taut, stiff from the cold and the beginnings of shock. The only moving thing he could see in the greenish atmosphere, were the small billowing clouds of his own frozen breath.

Until finally, after what seemed like hours, he managed to find a whitish light that didn't come from the fungi.

At first he stared in disbelief, unable to quite believe he had succeeded, but when he approached, the brightness did nothing but intensify. A tired, almost inexistent, smile, emerged to his lips.

'Finally.'

However, his instincts as a spy, did not allow the joy to make him neglectful. Distrustful, he continued to advance along the wall, supporting himself in it, and carefully observing his surroundings for any sign of the monster, before advancing a step further, gradually, toward the exit.

The fresh outside air brushed his face just a few steps from the mouth of the cave. Before him, a small clearing covered by snow and gray daylight, welcomed him outside.

He had never seen such a beautiful landscape.

At the time, even the exquisite gardens of Malfoy Manor wouldn't have seem more beautiful.

The cold breeze clearing his mind, and making him shiver even more. But he didn't care. For the first time in days, he felt alive.

Draco breathed deeply, enjoying a moment respite before approaching the task at hand; looking for the way to Hogwarts.

Orienting himself was difficult in the forest. And the softly falling snowflakes, had long since covered all traces, that could had helped.

Not knowing which direction to choose, but determined to leave, he took a random way, opting to maintain the same constant direction.

Sooner or later he would come out of the forest, and once at the edge it wouldn't be so difficult to find the way… if he managed to reach so far. Even if he didn't find any acromantula, or other creatures in his way, the greenery could still attack him, as he had seen before.

However, remaining wasn't an option.

So climbing with utmost care to the trunks for support when needed, teeth clenched, little by little, he started walking.

 **oOo**

Snow fell on his hair, crystallizing in his silver strands, on his shoulders, on his lashes ... he was freezing. Couldn't stop shaking.

The cold was beginning to fog his mind, and nausea was coming back. He was exhausted.

So when the spy heard it, he took a moment to react and recognize the sound.

Shouting.

Agonized shrieks of horror, tinged with excruciating pain ... that reminded him of the night the acromantulas attacked.

Draco swallowed, stepping back instinctively.

He was about to turn around, and get away from there as fast as his weak legs could. But at the last moment, he hesitated. Perhaps the dullness in his brain, played a role in his decision as well.

It was to expect the ones dieing where death eaters, as no one else would have entered the forest. Those were wizards that would soon leave their wands behind... and if Draco could take one for himself, returning home wouldn't be as difficult.

Yet, it was risky. The monster could be there, or the acromantulas could attack him. Even the greenery could do so. But he couldn't hope to understand how the trees would react to him, or if they would at all. As they had not until now. Strange as it was.  
And if he waited for the arachnids to finish their meal first, so they left what remained of the corpses and their possessions behind, he could make it.

 **oOo**

Draco remained hidden between trees and tall spines, as he carefully pushed aside the last branches that prevented him from seeing the clearing.

What appeared before him ... was a butchery.

Blood.

There was blood everywhere. Staining the snow red in violent patterns, marking trees with almost sickening splashes of brutality. Trickling from the living roots of the same trees, and the pieces of meat tangled in their claw-like thorns.

It stained the jaws of the acromantulas that plagued the place, devouring their prey.

Limbs and entrails scattered on the floor between remnants of broken bodies, shattered bone, and reduced to rags bloody black robes.

Death Eaters.

As he had thought.  
They must have tried to penetrate the forest.

'What a nonsense.' All they were going to accomplish was death. In fact, there were only a few left standing ...

A movement caught his eye, and he recognized the great acromantula. Shivering, he forced himself still, so as not to be spotted.

A dozen Death Eaters had managed to surround him. Combining forces to try to stop the enormous arachnid, but it was obvious that their efforts weren't having any success.

Spells and curses crackled in the air like whips, but the moment they came into contact with chitin, dissolved like water against an invisible force.

Even the unforgivables had no effect.

Draco had never seen anything like it.

The spider moved with the speed of a scorpion, confusing his attackers, pushing and throwing them, while brandishing his steely clamps like execution blades.

Tearing tissue with insulting ease, injecting venom, and watching the wizards twist at his feet, before crushing them almost compassionately.

Unstoppable, brutal and savage. Blood wetly spattering him red.

Then it happened.

One of the Death Eaters managed a spell, that since wasn't directed against the monster, served its purpose.

"Incarcerous!"

Thick ropes appeared from nowhere to immobilize and knock the arachnid down. His massive body collapsed on the floor.

Draco held his breath. For a moment, his heart seemed to stop, and then accelerate rapidly. For a second he did not know what he was feeling, or going through. Something inside him seemed to be screaming. Why? For what?

"Relasio."

And the ropes were gone.

It was as if someone had stopped time. Horror, surprise, disbelief, paralyzing all humans left standing, including Draco. The hissing sound, the mostly human voice the spell was uttered in, told him something he already knew.

"He knows magic!"  
The Cries of the Death Eaters joined with that on Draco's mind, breaking into pieces the sudden burial calm. Like a stone against glass. Breaking the moment in a burst of action. But it was already too late, the monster was on his feet.

Harry was starting to get angry, tired of these constant attacks, his patience was running short.

More now, when the spider pushed to get it over with as soon as possible, and return to the nest where his submissive awaited. Insistently clawing at the back of his mind, urging him to provide for the slytherin. To make sure he was okay.

Harry hissed internally and prepared to attack ... when the scent reached him.

Exotic, sweet, lush, sensual ... full of life.

Malfoy was ... pregnant ...

And he was there, putting himself in danger!

The notion made him put more force than necessary in the next attack, effectively decapitating with his jaws, the Death Eater before him. Blood bathing his face like a red spout. Looking around, ignoring the men still standing. Looking for the place it came from.

His gaze met Draco's.

The blond man stood in the snow, wrapped in furs that belonged to his nest, shaking with cold, peeking through the branches of the edge of the clearing. Lips almost blue, and snow glistening in his hair and shoulders like tiny sparkling ice crystals.

He looked exhausted, leaning precariously against the trunk of a tree, as if he could not support himself. His eyes, when their gazes meet, strangely intense. Gray as a storm about to break, tumultuous. There was fear in them, but also a determination that was greater than the weakness.

A strange gaze.

Harry knew then, he could sink into that intensity.

And for a moment he wished to possess that look, as he had never wanted anything.

 **oOo**

Draco felt trapped by that insidious gaze. He could be swallowed by its murderous and poisonous green, so much like the flash of kedavra avada, and never return.

He stepped back.

The Death Eater saw him before anyone else even realized, what was happening. And when he wanted to react, it was too late.

"Crucio."

The curse knocked him to the ground cutting the communion between their eyes.

Suddenly tearing the gray gaze from the green, and from a so perfectly strange moment, in which, for the first time, they had looked real and deeply into each other.

The unexpected and sudden separation, left Draco disoriented during the split second it took for the pain, to brandish his spinal cord like a tongue of fire.

He howled.

The intensity of the spell cracked his bones and burned his blood, traveling through his nerves, synapses firing flashes at the edge of his capacity for suffering. He couldn't think, hardly even react. He was not even aware of the freezing cold snow against his bare skin, or the blood running from the corner of his lips as his vocal cords threatened to break with his screams.

And something inside him tore.

 **oOo**

"Crucio!"

The sound reached Harry, but his mind did not register its meaning until the eyes he had been submerged in, closed in pain, and Malfoy collapsed in the snow convulsing, a cry of agony on his lips.

Instinct overwhelmed him.

The spider made his way from the depths of his consciousness, tearing into everything in his path with insane fury. The urge to protect his submissive was irresistible.

The Death Eater who had cast the curse did not even see it coming.

Harry opened him like a pig for slaughter, slashing him in a quick and cruel arc, from the base of his neck to the pubis. The remains of his organs spilled through the opening, while the man screamed and collapsed in a pool of his own blood and viscera. His gaze helplessly stuck on his killer, as it quickly glazed in death.

Draco felt the spell finally stop, but the pain did only change in nature. It was as if the attack had finally succeeded in tearing his organs.

Inside he felt weird, humid and hot. He was sure that something had opened, torn, his vital liquid flowing in internal bleeding. Pulling him to death and oblivion.

He was getting dizzy ... but found he didn't have the strength to care, because suddenly everything was swallowed by the darkness of unconsciousness.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

The smell of his companion's blood was powerful and fragrant, like a wilted flower preserved in linen cloth. Strangely melancholic.

Malfoy had fallen unconscious before he even reached him, the pain still on his face, and the subtle quiver of his eyelids and muscles. The blood on his thighs was starting to dye the snow a deep red. And when he lifted the blonde carefully in his arms, the carmine liquid also painted him in its garish shade.

"If I don't do something, he will lose the hatchling." The idea threatened to flood him with panic. He couldn't bring Malfoy to father again, not so soon.

He closed his eyes remembering that there were others who could help in the woods.

He turned to the nearest acromantula while he brought the blond against his chest, preparing to take the long way to his lair.

"Go and tell Soul my mate is in danger of losing our young. I will wait for him in my nest." he commanded.

The spider issued a hiss of understanding.

Harry ran without waiting to see if he was obeyed.

There was no need. He knew he would be.

 **To be continue.**

Notes:

There it goes the sixth chapter. A little prelude for things to come, hope you like it.  
On the other hand, my beta and I have good news; from now on "Spiderweb" will be published every monday. Once a week like a clock. ;)

See you next Monday.


	7. Meat

**Spiderweb**

 **Chapter 7 Meat**

(Harry)

He ran without stopping to his nest. Dodging rocks, through bushes, and jumping over fallen trees. The scent of Malfoy's blood was thick; an abrasive cocktail calling for the purest rage. An insidious invitation to madness that his spider wished to accept, and that only the tight control of the human and the guardian was able to contain.

But if Malfoy lost what he had bred within him...

He entered the caverns at a frantic pace, and only when finally inside the hollow where he had built his home did he stop, breathing hard, muscles trembling with the effort.

He looked down at the blond on his arms.

Realizing that the warmth he had felt in his arm was not just the contact of skin against chitin, but Malfoy's warm and wet blood, bathing the forearm that held his legs. Sticky, on the increasingly pale flesh of his thighs, staining them red.

The liquid was drying in some areas, thanks to the cold, to form a reddish brown crust, reminiscent of old parchment, causing the pale man look nearly white.

Harry began to fear Malfoy might die. But his breathing was still present, despite having turned into a muffled gasp, and his heartbeat hadn't stopped vibrating against Harry's own chest.

Sitting on the edge of the pile of ripped furs, the dark haired one clutched the limp body against his chest, listening intently to the erratic beating in those veins, worried it might start weakening.

Although he wouldn't have known what to do if that happened.

Instinct screamed and raced through Harry. Terrified by the idea of losing his only companion, the only member of his species he had ever known, and the only one he ever would. Perhaps the last one, besides himself, that was left.

The idea of being alone forever was terrifying.

But how wouldn't it be? Was it not of his kind to be the type of beings who mated for life? And although he could not say that he liked Draco Malfoy- not as a person, nor in any other way other than his usefulness- the thought that of remaining in the cold and sad solitude, of a shady lonely existence, was unbearable.

His spider nature believed it fervently. His conscience as guardian knew that without him, the forest would be lost. Despite this, his human side could not forget what he once was, what he had done.

However, no part of him wanted the death of the Slytherin, did not wish for his pale as whipped cream skin become gray as dry ash, dead.

'Where is Soul?' He was taking far too long.

In a few minutes it would not matter whether or not he came; neither Draco nor the baby would survive for much longer.

His fingers tightened on his load.

Perhaps it would be best to go to farther, even though it was too soon since the last time. He gritted his teeth, not wanting to have to resort to that. But the fear that gripped him was getting stronger, increasing with each new drop of red blood that was spilled.

"Fuck!" He could not wait any longer.

"Harry, boy, are you home?"

The smell, soft and old, of brittle dust, spices, musk, oils and fat, floated to Harry with the murmur of that dry cracked voice, spreading through his nervous system, and filling him with much needed relief.

Soul had come.

A stocky figure emerged from the shadows of the cave, limping as he walked.

The old man was bent under the weight of a large bundle of burlap. His skin was much like old leather in texture and looks, where age marks piled on each other. Wrinkles, fine lines and translucent veins, formed a map of the years and years he had lived. His hair, once a bright blonde, had long since become white. His body had twisted like the trunk of a tree over the decades. And the magic that had run through his veins like a fast mountain stream had been calmed until it became a calm lake.

But his mind was still as lively as a carnival serpentine, and his energy it seemed would last a few more years. An inheritance of his vela blood.

Soul was very old. Older than Harry could understand. It was him the one who had taken Harry in when he came to the forest for the first time, exhausted, confused and in pain, running away from a world he no longer understood, nor wanted to understand.

Soul had been Harry's support during his early days in the forest, the one who had helped balance his natures, and to fully understand himself. As well as the one who had kept him sane, when Harry realized he would have to eat human flesh.

If anyone could help him now, it had to be him.

"I need your help, Soul. My mate has been attacked, and our young is dying." Gently, he deposited Malfoy on the furs, so the old vela could see him.

The Slytherin's skin was ashen, his breathing choked, the slight tremor of his naked body- all signs he was weakening fast.

Soul approached the nest, and left the bag on the floor at his feet. His calm blue eyes, watching Draco's limp body, with the same careful affection of a grandfather who observes the scratches upon his grandson.

He placed his fingers at the base of Draco's stained and sticky red pubis, feeling carefully, and nodding to himself as the seconds passed, answering questions that were only in his mind, and whispering assertions that Harry barely caught in fragments.

Finally, he smiled, an elderly warm smile, cleaning his bloodstained fingers on his clothes, and began to rummage in the bag.

"How are they?" Harry could not help the worry filling his throat. Revealing to the old vela how important was for him the young Death Eater.

Soul smiled kindly.

"Do not worry, they'll be fine. Your partner is not as weak as you might think. Ah! Here it is," and extracted from the sack an old worn wooden mortar.

Harry nodded, making himself stay quiet. See how the healer worked. Trying to capture a sense of calm, while the protective instinct prickled his nerves, already on the verge of violence.

Gradually, those old hands began to pour into the mortar handfuls and pinches of other things-dry and deeply scented leaves, remains of bright insects, spicy powders, crushed roots-grinding everything into a grainy sand, to finally mix it all with the juicy insides of a pumpkin. The resulting mixture was a viscous creamy paste of a brownish green colour.

The smell of the cream was incredibly pervasive, almost rude in its scent. Harry would not speculate on its taste, much less when Soul brought a pinch to his mouth after plunging the tip of a finger on the green mass.

"It's ready. Come help me apply it."

The older pulled out a roll of bandage spun from spider-silk, and placed it in Harry's hands.

"I will put a bit on his belly and between his thighs, and the rest will have to be swallowed. But when I'm done, you must firmly bandage his pubis, his stomach, and especially the area between his thighs, so that the mixture takes effect, and the bleeding stops."

Soul began to carefully apply the cream on the bloody, incredibly soft and smooth underbelly, between his white buttocks, and in his pink tongue, forcing the blond to swallow the strange concoction with infinite tenderness. Massaging his battered throat, and retiring the sweaty hair stuck to his temples, boundlessly gentle with his ministrations.

When he was finished, and as he put everything back on the sack, Harry slowly uncoiled the bandages, pressing them to the angles and planes of that pale figure, now a little less ashen.

His hands, without Harry's conscious thought, delayed on the slytherin's abdomen, where his seed was growing, and between those pale thighs, where only a few hours earlier, he had entered.

Exploring briefly, possessively, taking in the contouring of the body that from now on would be his forever. His to protect, to own, to ...

The black widow pressed two fingers to his temple, trying to regain control, to send the instinct burning through him, back to the black spaces at the back of his mind.

Those possessive and protective cravings were starting to get insane. He forced himself to look at the dark mark on that slightly trembling, arm. Reminding himself what kind of monster he was trying to save, with what kind of sadistic murderer whose soul was sold to the darkness he had ran across. Memories, and well known hatred, relighting instantly.

Malfoy was a Death Eater, a wizard without conscience.

With a couple of fast sudden movements, he finished bandaging the blond. There was only one more thing he needed to know.

"The hatchling will be fine?

"As long as your mate rests and takes proper care. In fact, I wanted to talk about it. But first, you should light a fire. Your submissive will thank you for it, almost as much as I will. This cold gets deep into the bones; I'm not as young as I once was." Harry almost smiled. When had Soul been young?

Soon there was a blazing fire heating up the cave, fed with wood that Harry often stored in drier tunnels.

They sat on the floor by it, enjoying the pleasant warm; one eye on their conversation, the other in Draco, making sure that he did not worsen, although he already looked better.

In the orange light, Draco seemed almost relaxed. Harry looked away, ignoring the satisfied purr of his spider.

"What did you want to talk about?"

Soul outstretched and rubbed his hands toward the heat, thankful for it.

"I thought it would be good that we talk about how you should care for him, especially now that he's pregnant. Since there hasn't been anyone else of your species in the forest for more than a century, I do not think you know much about it."

Harry nodded. The last thing he wanted was to lose the hatchling. He could not afford it. Not with the declining pace of the great spirit.

"What I have to do?" His face was but a stony mask.

His answer seemed to please the old man.

"I'm glad you take it seriously."-he smiled like a proud father -"You must know that …"

 **oOo**

Uhm…

"Merlin ..."

Draco shifted weakly. He felt heavy and hungry, and very, very tired, but the hunger was bigger than the sleepiness, so niggling that it didn't let him back to the world of unconsciousness.

He shifted again, and knew what had awakened him. A deliciously rich smell. He had never smelled anything that did arouse his appetite quite so ferociously.

His mouth was filling with saliva.

Finally he forced himself to open his eyes, blinking languidly. There was another man sitting beside him on the bed . A male, athletic and powerful. "Who…?" He started to look up ... broad shoulders, the edge of crazy black hair ...

A hand rested, gently but firmly, over his eyes.

"You'd better not look at me."

Draco swallowed. He knew that voice, but it no longer had that almost monstrous hissing quality, yet the deep masculine tone was the same.

"How…? How can ...? You're the monster." Just barely awake, the shock made Draco react almost violently.

He writhed trying to get loose, but his strength was decimated to near extinction, and was no match for the other open palm that landed on his torso, pinning him down.

"Calm down. There are many things you don't know." The tone, seemingly quiet but stressed with tension, did nothing to calm him.

"Don't Touch me!" Nerves, stress, injuries, exhaustion, fear for all those people who were waiting for him at Hogwarts, the ... rape. The images, memories he had been avoiding, came back full force. His nerves were finally breaking.

"I said; Let me go!" He writhed again trying to get rid of the creature.

Harry frowned. Malfoy was getting too nervous. With the state he was in, and the baby hardly out of danger, if this continued ... It did not take but a moment to allow a fraction of his instinct to emerge. Spider fangs and venom, in his mouth, conjured in a body otherwise human.

Draco tensed like rope, at the feeling of warm breath on the sensitive skin of his throat.

"NO!" But the fangs were already gently piercing his skin, and the poison was flooding his bloodstream.

The spy's body began to relax slowly, softening and losing strength, until he fell completely limp on the furs.

Fear flooded Draco's insides with its cold fist, reminding him of the only other time he had felt the bite of the creature. Yet, he swallowed, forcing himself not to show it.

He awaited with mounting tension for when the feeling would become honey in his veins. Prepared to resist with all he had.

"Are you going to rape me again?" His cold tone, frosted into a blade of hatred that almost made Harry sigh. This wasn't going to be easy.

"That's not why I've bitten you. You needed to calm down, and it was the only way. We have to talk."

"Talk about what?" Despite having his eyes covered, and feeling limp as a wet towel, Draco still managed to make his voice poison; corrosive like hissing acid.

"About what you don't know. What you don't understand."

Harry would have liked to look at Malfoy's eyes as he spoke, to try to gauge what he was thinking. But he couldn't let himself be recognized. The only reason he had assumed human form, was to validate his next words.-"I'm not a monster. Contrary to what you may believe, what I did was necessary." He didn't wait for an answer. "We belong to an almost extinct race. I even though I was the last, until you walked into the woods. We are all that is left, you know? I had to do what I did, because instinct didn't leave me another choice, because it was the only way you would consent."He, conveniently, kept silence about the other side of the truth- the reason he so desperately needed a descendant. At the end of the day, Malfoy was what he was. And if, by some oversight, he returned to the wizards, the information that he was keeping silent could give Voldemort the key needed to finally destroy the last defense of the forest, and chop all the magical creatures that inhabited it for nothing more that potion parts.

And that, Harry would never allow.

"We are widows."

Draco swallowed, or at least he tried to. His mouth felt suddenly dry as sandpaper.

"You are crazy." But the words were nothing more than a limp whisper. The last weak denial of a child who has discovered his parents putting Christmas presents under the tree, and who knows that all his children's dreams are just that, dreams.

"I'm not. If you had not been of my kind, the poison would have killed you."

'I know. I know.' Draco's inner voice answered, broken, defeated.

All he wanted was to pretend it was not true. But he had studied ad nauseum all sorts of topics, books and scrolls, seeking a way to end this wave of darkness that had begun to permeate all since the dark lord took over the world. And he had always had a very good memory. Now his mind refused to forget what he already knew.

He remembered reading about them years ago. Information that only now, at hearing the name, came to memory.

Things about beings with spider blood, that were able to look human and arachnids, and all the intermediate forms. Of their power, strength, their resistance to magic, their ... extinction.

Supposedly they had been extinct for more than two centuries. Hunted to nothing for their magical qualities.

'And their venom is deadly to anyone who does not belong to the species.'

He swallowed again. Now he appreciated the warm hand resting on his eyelids; it's presence somehow reassuring in the velvety darkness within his own eyelids.

He didn't think he could have looked to that being without cracking at least a little. And as much as he had allowed this creature to see of him, he would not give him that too. Instead he decided to hold onto the anger, even if the poison tempered its call, and prevented him from thinking too clearly. At least there was no honey in his blood this time.

For some reason, the poison felt different.

"So that's it?! You think we're the only ones left of this cursed species, and want to continue with it, even if you have to keep forcing me until you get what you want?!" The rage he had gripped onto became pain as he spoke the words, dripping down them like tears.

Harry winced.

His instincts reacted to the pain he saw in his mate, urging him to calm the other down. But its murmur wasn't going beyond the back of his mind, where he had locked it down, and Harry found it far too easy to ignore.

Despite that, he was tired of being dragged by the animal lust and desire, already having been driven enough by them these last few days. The new pull infuriated him. He was not dealing with a pure and delicate being-he was dealing with a Death Eater, and he would act accordingly. The human remembered all too well all the wounds Malfoy had gifted them.

"You're right. I would have… had I not succeeded. But alas, you are pregnant."

The words were like a knife.

"Wha ... ?! NO!" Were it not for the substance in his blood, Draco would have tried to claw out the thing from his belly with his own hands.

The idea of a spider growing inside himself, even if it was of his blood, was disgusting and completely terrifying.

His body jerked up, and nausea preyed on his stomach, cringing at the reminder that it was painfully empty.

"Calm down, you will only feel worse."

Draco opened his mouth, to yell and demand how he could get even worse. But he could not emit more than a gurgle as his voice was drowned before it even rose when the fangs of the black widow plunged again into his throat.

This time, the dose of poison left him completely groggy, unable to form a single coherent thought. All he was able to feel clearly was the soft skin of the rippling palm on his eyelids, the once human flesh gaining a smooth and terribly hard layer of chitin.

When a moment later it withdrew from his face, the one before him was the semi human monster he already knew.

The male torso was just as black as before, its surface covered in obsidian-like chitin, shiny as the shell of a beetle. From his face, huge green eyes not unlikely those of a nymph studied him. Powerful jaws, between whose lips protruded fangs of an arachnid , and wild black hair, completed the nightmarish portrait.

Every human trace was gone.

However, the warm feeling of the poison did not allow him to feel anything more than a vague curiosity. Draco blinked languidly, watching the being go, only to return a little later with something in his talons. For a moment, he didn't know what it was, but the smell was delicious, and he was so hungry...

" ... Please …" he could only mumble in a confused whisper.

And Harry obliged.

He knew Malfoy would now be too weak to eat by himself, but that was better than the hate and panic he would have had to see in his eyes had he not drugged him.

"Ssssh, quiet. You can eat all you want." Harry brought the lightly decaying arm he had been grilling to his own mouth, and took a bite, avoiding the area where the Dark Mark was printed in.

He chew briefly, turning the meat into a juicy pulp, and bent over the blond man, to melt their lips together in a hungry kiss.

The instinct, so long trapped inside Draco, stretched in the darkness of his mind, and suggested with its serpentine voice the almost erotic way in which he had to open his lips, to receive that exquisite flesh.

Harry felt pink lips part slightly, as the red tip of the tongue sought his mouth and the offered food. The sensation, the eroticism of having Draco responding for the first time to his touch made his body stiffen and desire crawl up his spinal cord like lightning from a marine storm; wild, brutal. A growl of pleasure caught in his throat, making the blonde shiver.

'Later.' He told himself firmly, caging his instincts with everything he had.

First, he should address his mate's hunger, so that he, as well as the baby, were well fed. But after, after… he would deal with the most basic needs of both their spiders. Soul's words still whispering in his head:

'There will be times when you will want your mate, when resisting will be tortuous. Do not. If you think that's what a submissive needs, you're wrong. His instincts will run crazy while pregnant, and it will only become worse. If you do not submit to your own instinct, and take him, fill him with your seed, balancing his hormones with yours, he will become frantic."

When all the meat was eaten, and its juice heated their stomachs, their mouths joined by tender threads of saliva and shreds of the bloody juice, he seized the languid calm of Malfoy's brain wrapped in poison. And Harry, ruled by the spider's instinct, bent over Draco, looked for his fill within his body.

His fingers opened those thighs as white as cream. His claws curled into those creamy hips. His tongue licked those candy-like nipples. And his member embedded in the depths of that tunnel of silk. Groaning, grabbing each other, grunting, trying to take all the other had to offer, until both were filled with the other's fluids; saliva, blood, poison and semen, coating them inside and out. They went on until Draco collapsed entirely, and nothing was heard in the quiet stillness of his sleeping nest.

 **To be continue**


	8. For my body

And now…

Welcome to:  
 **  
Spiderweb**

 **Chapter 8- For my body.**

He opened his eyes slowly, just a crack, still dozing in the golden warmth of the furs and the almost snuffled embers of the fire.

He felt soft, taken by the heat absorbed during the night, embraced by the pleasant temperature of...

He stirred somewhat, lazy like a cat. Stretching a hand in search of the source of warmth, his body, if not his mind, remembered curved against his side, and under his tired cheek, taking out the chill the snow had cast in his bones.

But his fingers found only still warm pelts, and the empty space where it had been.

Frustrated, he stretched a little more, and a needle of pain, delicate like an echo, pierced his abdomen.

Pain ... memories of the previous day climbed to his waking mind, slimy and unpleasant.

Draco opened his eyes fully, revealing aggressively contracted pupils, and gray irises darkened to almost black.

Suddenly, the scent permeating the furs registered in his consciousness; dried blood, sex, and old dust. Intense, choking...

The last remnants of sleep joined with the mortuary perfume, making Draco dizzy.

He felt weak, exhausted. And the wave of panic that threatened to break over him, did nothing but raise to even greater heights of discomfort, until it became a giant titan, frothy with incoherence and the horror of the half-remembered memories, made hazy by the poison; Hands, lips, shiny black beetle shell-like chitin , fangs dripping in venom, fondling, blood, claws, semen...

But also warmth.

Soft, cloyingly sweet, tender in the arms that had held Draco as he moaned in pain, and in the hands that had brushed his sweaty hair from his temples.

The dichotomy made everything seem to tilt precipitously, despite being lying down.

The air stopped in his throat, and for a moment he was unable to breathe, his impossibly distended irises, fixed on the luminous fungi of the stone wall, without seeing them. Body rigid, heart pounding against his ribs in the crazy cadence, almost arrhythmic, of a war drum.

One of the two sets of memories had to be false. Or the creature was playing a very cruel game with him.

The spy put his hands to his head, trying to bring order to the chaos. But only when the absence of oxygen in his lungs began to burn, his brain managed to break the surface of the silt, that had paralyzed him.

'Stockholm', something he had read long ago, snaked by his disjointed neurons, and dragged the information out, much like a piece of torn fabric.

But it didn't make sense, it did not.

In his panic he crawled out of the nest, falling on the cold stone floor, putting physical distance between the place of his memories, and himself.

The cold, so sudden and sharp against his almost completely naked body, hit him squarely.

Draco breathed convulsively, choking in the cold air, his body beginning to ache, as when a relief potion starts losing its effect.

The agony of recovering memories brought a sense of nausea that threatened to make him vomit.

Panic. He was having a panic attack.

"Enough ... I have to calm myself."

Draco closed his eyes, allowing himself to relax on the icy stone, so the temperature shock might wake him up, forcing himself to slow down his breathing, until it became deep and rhythmic.

Helping his thoughts return to something more like the calm pond they used to be. Although, in the apparent tranquility, hidden beneath the surface of his occlumency, tumultuous feelings and panic, churned like sharks.

"Okay. What has happened, has happened."

He clung to the words repeating them like a mantra, like a prayer, again and again, and again, and again ... as he had done once before, until the sharks started sinking slowly to the bottom of the pond. Until he could look into the water and not feel like screaming.

And only then, he was left to contemplate what that ... that monster, had turned him into ... and what he had said. Draco didn't shy from the knowledge, since he knew trying to deny the truth, was a quick way to madness.

He had seen it too many times.

The idea of being a monster was not as frightening as the notion of being pregnant.

Perhaps because he couldn't feel any change in himself. Perhaps because the idea of nurturing a creature brought by the one who had hurt him so, was repugnant to a visceral level.

He pressed his cheek against the frosty, wet stone floor. His eyes full of unshed tears. The cold was soothing.

But the repugnance and disgust, that clung to his bowels with an iron fist, seemed almost solid.

Draco shivered like a child who has been abandoned on a winter night. And nausea became arcades, that, had there been something left to digest in his stomach, would have made him vomit.

They didn't last more than a minute, but the nausea stayed, unpleasant and unhealthy.

Merlin ... He clutched his belly, fingers barely skating the area where the fetus should be, without daring to touch it at all. His lungs burned, and he realized that sweat had begun to pearl his bare skin.

... Something was growing inside him, perhaps in the form of an abomination halfway between a spider and a human. Or even more horrible, as a complete spider.

It mattered little, that he too, could be one. The hatchling, if Draco had really been breed, (and there was no reason to believe that the monster had lied), was the result of a disgusting act.

And the scariest part, was that the resulting abomination was his.

The idea that a fetus come from the monster, had something of Draco's...

For a moment, the mental image was so disgusting and terrifying, that tears were about to break the barrier of will, that the spy had been trying so hard to sustain.

He would not cry.

After all the unforgivable things he had seen and done, under the rule of the Dark Lord, believing that his tears had dried, this monster had managed to wrest complete agony drops from him, once already.

He would not manage a second.

Draco gritted his teeth and dug his nails into the soft skin of his belly, with a consuming anguish he had never felt before, until he started bleeding. Blood, of a deep and sticky like candy red, soaking his fingers.

The new pain, and the warmth of his own vitality, managed to calm him, as had not done the cold and his own efforts.

Therefore, to remove his nails from his skin, and not further increase the wounds until he took the fetus from his body with his own hands, was an exercise of nearly unbreakable will. Only pride allowed him to accomplish.

The monster was not going to get to destroy Draco. Not physically, not psychically.

Because ... Another new pain raised, when he remembered, suddenly, the people at Hogwarts, unaware of the traitor within their own walls. In danger of death, or something much worse, if the Dark Lord managed to break the barriers of the last refuge of the light.

So terribly vulnerable ...

Draco grabbed the energies he had left, the fear for his loved ones, the notion of what would happen if he didn't warn them in time, and the agonizing probability that it could already be too late, to crystallize his own will into a needle of unbreakable steel, that could keep the fear and panic at bay.

"I have to warn them." There had to be a way to achieve that. He just had to find it.

Taking a deep breath, Draco slowly studied the place he was in.

Still the cave.

He became aware of the bandages gripping his lower belly and thighs. The unpleasant feeling, wetly sticky inside. His exhaustion and discomfort.

The Malfoy heir felt sick.

But at least there was no sign of the black widow. Not that he could see from his position, lying on the ground.

However, not being able to perceive him, didn't confirm his absence from the cave, or from its surroundings. The creature may have ways to know if he tried to leave.

And he was too fast, too powerful, to escape, even if Draco had had his wand.

He had seen the arachnid twice in combat, more than enough to know he wouldn't be able to escape on his own.

The widows strength ... it was terrible, a dozen Death Eaters had barely hindered his progress. And even less their spells.

The memories came clear as crystal.

The black widow knew magic. Draco had seen him cast spells.

The first time he had been almost unconscious, in pain, and hadn't assimilated, at the time, that the great acromantula had been the one casting the healing spell that had relieved him a little.

But the second time, yesterday, in combat, the spell he had used to break free from the Incarcerous ... and Draco knew he could take human form, when the monster decided to look as such.

A new thought stretched in his mind full of steel teeth, anger, hatred, and cold intellect.

That being, at some point, had been a wizard.

That being, at some point, had been human.

Or something similar enough to infiltrate polite society. And if he had done it once, he could do it again ...

"His desire is to perpetuate this damn specie, even if he has to use me in order to accomplish it. Because according to him, I am the only other left. And he will not let me go."

If he was willing to fall so low to get a descendant. To the point of torturing the only other one of his own, he had found.

He will not let him go.

Not until Draco gave him what he wanted. And maybe not even then. When he finally got tired, Hogwarts could be nothing but ruins.

But such an intense desire, also meant something else.

Malfoy smiled a cruel, cold and black, smirk.

He knew what he had to do.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

"Stupid kids."

The furious hissing made the nearest acromantula, lift his gaze from his feast, (the Death Eater under his feet, still convulsing weakly in the last breaths of life).

A new group of the Dark Lord's servants had disturbed Harry's sleep, an hour before dawn. Forcing him to leave the warm shelter of his nest, and the body, still gently gifted, of the asleep Malfoy.

The carnage was quick.

The vegetation had already done much of the work when he arrived with the acromantulas, and had only been necessary to end the small resistance of the survivors.

But this attack, with so little time passed since the previous one, was worrying.

The Death Eaters were accelerating, with increasingly shorter intervals between invasions.

Voldemort must be getting desperate. They could not remain many magical creatures outside the Black Forest. How long until the need for potions, made him launch a real attack against the woods?

Harry thought that the only reason it hadn't already happened, was the resistance. Most of Voldemort's troops had to be dedicated to the "cold" war, that had been running for years.

And only the new followers, younger and less prepared, were those who, for being dispensable, were sent to the forest.

No more than boys.

Dark, sold to Voldemort, cruel, murderers, and ruthless. But still, almost children.

Voldemort knew very well that by sending them to the Dark Forest, he was signing their death warrant. And they were conceited enough to believe that, where others had been unable to survive, they would.

He himself knew what naive young humans could be. What manipulable. What dispensable.

He had been inculcated to perfection.

"Stupid." The injustice burned him as he looked at the bodies.

The memory of a life he had left behind long ago. The fragments, still bleeding, of a betrayal he could never forgive, but that he didn't want to remember, rising from the coffin where they had been buried almost ten years ago, forgotten in the cemetery of his memory.

Harry pushed them back to the grave with brutality.

He had major concerns to attend to. Soon, the shortage of potions was going to be dangerous for Voldemort. If he wanted to continue the war, at least. And when that happened, if the forest spirit had not recovered ...

Although they would present battle, there were not so many people is the woods, to face the armies of darkness.

'Only a few months more. If we can hold on a few months more, all Voldemort could throw at us, would not matter. They won't be able to break through the barriers of the Forest.'

Around him, the shadows of the leafless trees had begun to stretch across the clearing, like skeletal fingers. Under the perpetual blanket of dark clouds that covered the sun, the morning had given way to noon.

Malfoy must be already awake, or about to be.

"I'd better get back to the nest." -The Mutilated bodies looked at him from the floor.- "And bring some food." He took one of them in his jaws.

 **oOo**

When Harry reached the cave, the web of detecting and protective spells, which he had woven that morning, remained untouched.

Inside, in the dim light of the greenish fungi, everything seemed quiet. And as he moved through the network of tunnels, the only sounds were his own, accompanied by the occasional patter of water drops against stone, or against the soft surface of the moss.

Malfoy seemed to be asleep...

When the apparent tranquility of the room burst into pieces, with a single inhalation.

The smell of blood was almost like a physical blow. It entered his nostrils and electrocuted his nervous system, awakening the instinct that had just begun to subside after the carnage, of the arachnid.

It was the exotic, sweet, and sticky fragrance of the slytherin's blood.

The cadaver slipped from his tweezers to the floor.

He ran.

Harry burst into the nest with fangs bared, and his heartbeat a mad staccato in his throat.

For a moment, he had believed that the remedy Soul had administered-whatever it was that green mass of pumpkin juice, insects, and old dust- had not been enough, and Malfoy's internal wounds had reopened. Although Harry had been inside the blond last night, just hours after the attack, and he had not uttered a whimper of pain.

He came prepared to stop bleeding, and carry him to Father if necessary.

What he was not prepared for, was to find Malfoy, lying on the mountain of fur, completely naked except for the bandages around his belly and thighs, raised slightly on a arm, defiant. His gaze hard; the cloudy gray of his pupils, looking like solidified steel. And in his hand, gripped so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, he holded a thick shard of rock, its jagged edges enough to rip flesh.

He had the tip resting on his belly.

The smell of blood came from the deep scratches marrying the soft skin of his underbelly, which had just stopped bleeding.

Harry let out a low violent hiss, at the sight. His long legs carried him into the cavern, dangerously close to Draco. Who simply pressed the tip of stone against his own skin, all cold indifference, even as the scratches started bleeding again.

"Don't take a step more."- Malfoy ordered in a deadly quiet voice. The arm that held the shard, tense.

Harry bared his fangs again, aggressively, but his former Hogwarts fellow knew very well that he wouldn't attack him.

Because if he did, he wouldn't be in time to stop the makeshift stone knife, from embedding on the flesh, and killing the creature cradled inside his womb.

He stopped a few meters from the bed, barely controlling his anger, pushing it to the back of his mind, but not too far away.

"I don't know what you think you're doing. But killing what you have inside won't help you any. I'll just have to wait until you're healed, and then breed you again." The threat was clear. Kill the hatchling, and the two previous rapes will look like a pleasure in comparison.

Draco pressed a little deeper, accepting the pain whiplash that rose from his skin through his column, and even to the tips of his fingers, deepening his breathing.

"You could do it, and I would kill it again, again and again, all the times it took."

Harry tensed like a bow. Because he knew that Malfoy was capable of it. He could not always keep an eye on the wizard, or have him bound in his state, stress might be enough to kill the hatchling. And as desperately as they needed this, he couldn't take the chance. Or everything that he had fought for, would be for naught.

"You know I will not let you go." the hiss poisonous as cyanide between his fangs.

"I know." -his tenuous intake, the only sign of weakness Draco could not hide.- "But I will not stay. I have to go back to the war."

Harry snapped his jaws.

"You will not."

Draco pressed a little more. Blood trickled down his sides staining the furs. He saw the black widow tensed violently, the damage was becoming serious.

"We can make a deal, or we can both get nothing. It's up to you."

Harry drew himself up to his freakish height.

"What kind of deal?" distrust, anger and murderous tension permeated his words.

Draco knew he was walking on very thin ice. But he had stepped on thinner planes and come out victorious.

"You want a baby from me."- pronouncing those words left a rotten taste in the mouth- "I have to get back to the combat. The deal is simple enough; my body, for your help in the battle."

Harry froze, processing that, while Draco soothed the nausea of that phrase. But trapped in a staring contest, which sought to read the other's intentions.

'So Malfoy wants me to fight for the Death Eaters.'- Harry thought. Disgust climbing his brain synapses, yet he knew if that was what was needed to save the forest, he would.

At the end of the day, killing Death Eaters or members of the light, made no difference. Both sacrificed innocents for their benefit. As far as Harry was concerned, they could wage war until they killed themselves.

But if Malfoy gave him a hatchling ...

"With what conditions?" he asked coldly.

Draco felt the lump he had kept pressing inside, began to relax.

"I know you can camouflage among humans, I've seen you do magic."- Harry didn't say a word.- "Come with me to Hogwarts, pretending to be my ally. That's where I'll be helping mine. So you can watch my ... pregnancy"- syllables that wanted to burn his paladar.- "go well. And I direct your efforts in the war."

"I thought you served the Dark Lord."- Harry asked, not sure what to think about that.

Draco smiled slightly, a small smile of saddened cruelty.

"I'm on my own side."

'Malfoy is more like Snape the bastard, than I thought.' And that gave him the advantage of not having to bend for Voldemort, nor for Dumbledore. To play an alliance solely linked to the slytherin blond.

It was, somehow, better than the had expected. But that didn't mean that leaving the forest to fight in a war he had left long ago, and to have to return to a world he despised, were not repugnant decisions.

And yet, he would ... with his own conditions.

"If you want me to fight under your command, I will. But in return, I will not only want you to carry this pregnancy to end."- He let part of his human side emerge, allowing his body to metamorphose into the hybrid between human and spider, he had used in each of their encounters. And this time he hissed with lips that had been on his, moved with a body that had entered him, and gazed with eyes that had seen him cry out in pain, and moan in pleasure. - "I want your body to be mine. That you lie with me whenever I want, and obey me in everything your health concerns. Our hatchling will be born healthy. I will not accept anything less."

Draco swallowed, and lifted his chin proudly. The shard of stone withdrawing from his skin.

"Okay." -My body for their lives.-

 **To be continue.**


	9. Under skin

Notes:

Hi again.I have been pretty occupied as of late, ironically enough because I'm on holiday. Still, don't worry, here is your promised chapter. I should have warned you sooner that one coma in dialogues means it's a thought, and two it's something actually being said.

I hope you like this long chapter. And have a great Halloween.

Welcome to:  
 **  
Spiderweb**

Chapter 9. Under Skin

"Soul."Harry called from the doorway.

The kind old man turned to greet him, as he set the wooden spoon he had been stirring the soup with, on the table.

Soul's house could barely be called so, as it was little more than a large hole in the ground, under the huge roots of a century-old oak.

But nevertheless, it had a fireplace -one made of old red bricks, blackened by use- wooden furniture, and large carpets to cast out the cold. Accompanied by dozens of odds and ends; polished stones, dried plants hanging from the ceiling in bouquets, ceramic jars full of roots, nuts, pots, cutlery, and glass jars filled with insects and animals parts, giving the place a spicy aroma- a mixture of wood smoke, dry leaves, and delicate almost spicy, difficult to define, undertones.-

Harry sometimes wondered about the origin of the furniture and utensils, but everything was so old, that no doubt it had been there decades before the war.

"Boy, what are you doing here?" Soul asked, a gentle smile curving his wrinkled mouth. "Your mate is feeling well?"Almost before he finished talking, his hands were already searching among the jars on the shelves.

"Yes, the wizard's ok."- Enough to make demands. Harry thought to himself in veiled rage. And maybe, deep down, a hint of sardonic admiration. - "I've come to ask you to talk to Father for me."

The long fingers of the old vela, stopped, as he finally looked at Harry, and his smile became a grimace of concern.

"What have you done, child?"

"What I had to." Harry swallowed the guilt that would have wanted to burn his throat.

Knowing that this was the only way to save the forest. The reminder gave him strength to say what he had come to tell, without looking away.

Soul frowned, his wrinkled and stained hands, squirming together.

"What have you promised?"- and there was genuine concern in his cracked voice.

Harry felt his shoulders tense with the desire to alleviate the elder, but didn't allow himself to help. Not yet, when he had such bad news to give.

"The wizard is fighting on Dumbledore's side. He wants that I accompany him to Hogwarts, in exchange …"

"What have you done?" - Soul interrupted, but Harry went on.

"In exchange, he offered his body, to do with him as I please."

Soul shook his head wearily, not so much in denial, as if in a gesture of defeat.  
"I won't change your mind, right?"

Harry swallowed. The only gesture of weakness he allowed himself. If he let himself soften, Soul will convince him to stay, and there was so much depending on this, he could not afford it.  
This was the only way.

"I'm not sorry."

The old vela male seemed to have suddenly aged a decade, and when he dropped into a chair, his whole body sank into the furniture as if he had lost his strength.

"And you want that I be the one to tell the Great Spirit, that you are going." It wasn't even a question.

"Please." Harry asked calmly, knowing what would be the answer.

Soul gave a short laugh that was anything but cheerful.

"All right, boy. I will talk to him. Although you know he won't like this, do you?"

Harry nodded, the tension he had just realized had been gripping him, shedding from his shoulders.

"I know. That's why it must be you. Tell him tomorrow, when we are already gone."

Soul waved a hand vaguely, as a sign of acceptance.

"Be careful boy."

"I will."

 **oOo**

(Draco)

Draco pressed his fingers to his tender belly, feeling carefully, checking if the pink scars still hurt. But he only felt a slight discomfort, he knew, would soon disappear.

The black widow had known some healing spells good for superficial wounds. And although his knowledge went no further; of the scratches and deep stone-cut, remained no more than a few pinkish lines, that still needed some time, to lose the delicacy of freshly healed wounds.

After, he had gone to talk to the acromantulas, or forest creatures, or whoever he needed to warn about his departure. He had not given any further explanations. And Draco didn't need them. But he wished they had left immediately.

Time was essential to Hogwarts and its inhabitants. And a few hours could mean the difference between life and death.

Images, memories of the tortures he had been forced to attend, and execute, in the service of the Dark Lord, wanted to embrace his mind like snakes coming out of their den, encompassing his deepest fears.

But Draco killed the thought before it could materialize at all.

There would not be any advantage on his squirming in concern. Instead, he chose to go over everything he knew, all he could remember of the members of the inner circle, trying to discover who among them could be the traitor. If it was one of them, that is.

It was hard, everyone was tired of the war, all had lost loved ones, everyone had wanted to surrender sometime. Draco knew that feeling of helplessness, that terrible weight that seemed to talk, hinting that no matter what you did, it was useless, only a matter of time before the Dark Lord killed them.

But despite all the difficulties, they had managed to move on, find reasons to fight.

Or so he'd thought...

"¿Do you have strength for the trip?"

The question broke his thoughts, from the darkness of the entrance to the nest.

The surprise and relief made Draco turn his head toward the sound, in the same instant his brain caught ...  
Familiarity. Not only recognition. The voice that of the arachnid, yet, at the same time, that of someone else …

The recognition he had not expected, made his breath catch for a second between his teeth. The only physical reaction, he was not quick enough to hide.

Draco had heard that voice before.

Without the sizzle of the arachnid form, the human voice was so recognizable... like very black chocolate. Sweet and sour. And the taste was made as appetizing, as a long saved ounce on silver glossy paper.

He suppressed the shiver that wanted to climb his skin.

'Where have I heard it before?' He thought, tried to remember the person, the face that was to accompany the voice, but the knowledge slipped through his fingers like smoke.

The one who had spoken, left the darkness to approach the nest.

The greenish light of fungi slid down the black robe he wore- dressed for the first time before Draco- like dark water. Traveling across the fabric, the burden he was carrying, and shiny leather boots he wore, in a light caress.

For the aristocrat it was easy to see that the robe did not truly conform to his figure. The high quality fabric spoke of a custom-made piece, designed for someone quite thicker than him. And the spy found himself wondering from what body the monster had taken it. Or whom he had killed to get it.

The clothes, the voice ... for the first time the monster looked human. And as a man remained tall, almost as tall as in his hybrid form. He was all broad shoulders and heavy musculature, loaded with a grace that did not match the power Draco could feel radiating from him.

He moved with the fluidity of a spider even as a man, and Draco knew why he had not heard him coming.

He sought the creature's face, unconsciously, anxious, the air of familiarity increasingly powerful ... But the darkness of the folds cast by his hood, didn't allow more than shadows to be seen.

"He's hidden from me." Suspicion prickled his nerves like the teeth of a hedgehog.

They knew each other.

Draco couldn't define it. But there it was; certainty. As if his mind and his chest were pulling long unused valves. Sometime, somehow, they had already met.

For a moment, he wondered how that first time he had found his human form, that feeling had not seized him. But he recalled that at that time he had been drugged, injured, and unlikely to perceive anything beyond the mental agony of the rape.

Rape ...with the memory the thirst for knowledge became imperative. For if the other had forced him, having already previously met…

Who was him? An old enemy? Someone Draco had hurt as a boy? A stranger he had crossed paths with at some point? No, not that. He was too familiar to be just that.

Anger and the desire to know, burned his insides. But the spy didn't allow his feelings into his gestures.

'Who you are?' he thought, brushing aside the furs, lowering from the bed.

"Shall we go now?" - he asked. Voice calm, almost bored. The relaxed posture of a falsely calm snake.

"First get dressed. Outside has started to snow again." Harry threw the burden of skin and cloth he had been carrying at the blonde's feet, all contempt and indifference.

Draco raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He just took the clothes, and shook the dust of the ground, from them. The jumble of things were a pair of worn faded white pants, a sweater of pale wool large enough it could serve him as sleeping shirt, a pair of soft brown boots, and a coat of thick snow-white fur.

The quality of the coat caught his attention instantly. It's softness, thickness ... he plunged his hand into it, watching his palm disappeared into the fur, as smoothly as between feathers. Using the gesture as an excuse to remain naked before the other, a moment longer.

Despite having to suppress the nausea of being seen by the same monster that had him raped ... Draco chained the memories well away from his thoughts. He needed all his weapons, to pry the information he wanted from the creature.

'Seduce, distract, and eventually he would make a mistake.' was his mantra.

As it was easy to see that the other found him attractive. His posture, his apparent indifference, the way Draco could feel his gaze follow his every move... He was sure, that despite the monster's own judgement, he wanted him.

"It's really thick. There are very few animals with such a skin." Malfoy said with apparent distraction, searching for a way to make the other speak. Since if he heard his voice again, perhaps he would manage to remember where and when, he had heard it before.

"It's snowcat fur" His cold voice didn't give Draco the grip he needed. So the spy hid his frustration, and took advantage of the sudden comment of the widow, looking up from the coat at him.

He could not say for sure, but for a moment, thought his eyes had met. The feeling of disgust and suppressed anger the slytherin caught from the arachnid, brushed his senses like a scratch. His own hatred rose in response. But he forced himself to caress the sharp feelings to calm them. Always keeping a clear mind, was the first rule of a spy.

He looked to the snowcat coat again.

The magic inherent in the species, turned their coat into a natural insulator from the cold, much better than any spell. Their skin had been highly prized for making winter coats, when Voldemort had not yet ascended to the throne. That was over ten years ago. No one had seen any of those huge magical cats since the dark forest closed.

Where had, the big spider, taken it from? He put the question in the back of his mind, to contemplate later. Any little hint could always be useful.

Draco rose from the nest carefully, and proceeded to dress. Too much time naked and the monster could believe he was trying to provoke him. Something that would raise his suspicions. Who would try to seduce the monster who had raped them?

For now he will seek to approach without straying too far from the facade of the aristocrat. His strange attitude so far, could be excused by stressful circumstances, but if he didn't start to act as expected of him, the monster might discover his intentions, and hide back in his spidery forms. And if he did, the chances of knowing who he was, would be reduced to almost zero.

Because if what he suspected was true, they had already met years earlier, when Draco was still only the young, spoiled, proud, aristocrat, he had buried nearly a decade ago. That gave him an advantage. The other was sure to underestimate his intelligence, and thus, make a mistake.

Finally, he put on the coat, not trying to hide his surprise at how good it felt on him.

Consequently, he forced himself to say the word.

"Thanks." His voice cold, yet polite. The mixture would be expected of him in this situation. He hoped the widow believed that what he did was try to lay the foundations for a cordial relationship, for the months that were to come.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

He had not believed that Malfoy would thank him for the gift. And for a moment, the instinct of the widow flamed through his gut, filled with the satisfaction of having pleased his submissive. A moment later, his human side crushed him like an annoying insect.

'If I have to live with the snake, I can not allow him to earn anything from me, no feelings, no trust, nor anything else beyond what is absolutely necessary.' Harry told himself.

The way his widow part had jumped when the slytherin had been injured, had come to frighten him when he had time to think about it. It was too confusing, too strong. He could not let his instincts dominate him, not when so much depended on his mission. And Malfoy was a manipulative bastard, you had only to see how he moved from one side of the war to the other, as he pleased.

'And I won't be one of his puppets.'

The cold hatred of his childhood ran through his blood, cooling his response like liquid nitrogen.

"Do not thank me. If you suffer, the hatchling suffers. Just don't freeze out."

Draco nodded proudly. He had not expected a better response.

He finished buttoning up the coat, and ran his fingers between his tangled blond locks, trying to give them a more decent look. Although he knew it was useless, he did it nonetheless, just to give his character a little more credibility.

"Your name." He demanded.

"What?"

Draco pretended to swallow a sigh of impatience, and approached the black widow keeping a safe distance between the them.  
Back straight and chin slightly raised in a self-assured pose that revealed a good portion of the creamy white skin of his throat. Unconscious really, of the seductive gesture that his barely awake instincts, were inducing him to adopt.

For the large spiders, there were very few spots as erotic as the throat.

"What's your name? Or you do not have one?" he repeated, easily slipping into the almost cruel language of his childhood.

Harry cocked his head to one side, trapping the desire to simply ignore him, watching the blond with disgust, but aware, unwittingly, of the bluish hue, like a brush-caress, of the veins under the skin.

At some point he would need to give the slytherin a name. So why not answer the git, and get it over with?

That didn't mean he had to be friendly, of course.

'They call me the guardian. But if we go to that castle of yours, I guess I will need a human name." The condescending tone, almost hurtful.

Draco said nothing, didn't think it was needed. It was enough to lift a brow in a truly aristocratic gesture. A reflection of the elegant arts of his mother, who seldom needs words to show, with the coldness of the lady of the house, her displeasure.

"I suppose you may call me Raksa."

"From Raksaka?" It means guardian in Hindi lands. Where did he learnt that? One more piece for the puzzle that remained tangled in his brain.

The guardian nodded. No wonder Malfoy knew, as an aristocrat he was expected to be cult.

"My name is Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

'As if I could forget.' Harry thought, his mental voice full of resentment. But he forced himself to nod, showing that he had heard.

"And now that we've finished with the greetings," He turned without waiting to see if it was followed. "let's get moving. Otherwise we will not arrive before nightfall "

Malfoy hastened to follow in his footsteps through the underground tunnels, eager to get to Hogwarts as soon as possible.

It was obvious that Raksa wasn't happy with the situation. And Draco could not help feeling a little touch of vindictive satisfaction, bathing his insides.

 **oOo**

The last meters of the tunnel were colder than the caverns inside. The icy breeze of the fresh snowfall, entering the cave system with sibylline fingers, that brushed against their faces, turning into vapor their breaths, and forcing Draco to burrow a little deeper into his new coat.

The light kept intensifying, until they could see the exit just a few meters away.

As the widow had said, the increasingly dark clouds, were letting a new wave of snow fall on the crusted snow and ice already in place. Replacing the dirty white with a completely pure one, and turning the soil twice as dangerous; Deeper and more slippery. While whitening the trees and shrubs of the clearing, to an even grayer hue than before.

The constant cold was killing the forest's vegetation.

"Wait here." The monster's voice pulled Draco from his insubstantial thoughts, in time to see him disappear among the trees. Only to return a few moments later, followed by a huge acromantula.

The insect kept near Raksa, like a dog to his master, as obedient as one.

"Egoro will come with us to the forest's frontier, so you don't have to walk there through the snow."

Draco raised an eyebrow, and looked at the insect, he knew, fed on human flesh. Hesitating a moment, weighing the pros and cons of looking fearful. But he was no longer a child, and the widow had seen him interact with even bigger arachnids, without ruffling a hair.

He lifted his chin.

"All right."

Draco left the passage to stand before them, face impassive and determined. The acromantula was as tall as himself. So he turned to the widow regally, as if he had every right to give him orders.

"So? Will you help me up?"

Harry gritted his teeth. 'As cocky and proud as ever.' Malfoy had not changed his manners, that much was evident. He took the aristocrat by the waist, lifting him effortlessly, to sit on Egoro's bulbous back.

"Let's go." If a word had sounded so contained of fury on Raksa's lips, Draco had not heard it before.

He hid his gently cruel smile on the fur of his coat, and hoped the other was wringing inside.

 **oOo**

The blizzard was getting stronger, and as night was closing, the wind howled through the trees with banshee wails.

Snowflakes as large as his hand obscured their vision, and in the darkness, the magical light the widow had invoked, was slightly more visible than the little flame of a match.

However, despite the blizzard, Raksa seemed to know the way. He moved through the darkness in an almost unnatural way -too quick, too fluid- even being sunk in cellist to his knees; as if despite only having two legs now, he was moving with eight.

The acromantula followed him with the same predatory grace, carrying Malfoy, who kept scrutinizing the dark for the lights of Hogwarts.

The trees became more sparse, and the cold more intense. The wind shook their clothes furiously and threw snow flakes to their faces.

It was becoming difficult to move on, as there was less vegetation cover to cut off the attack of the elements. When they finally emerged fully from the forest, the road to the castle was invisible, swallowed beneath layers of whiteness, and the night that had finally fallen completely, plunging everything in the blackness of a jar of ink.

They could not even see the moon in the sinister darkness, filled by the howl of the storm. The ball of blue light in Raksa's palm was all that seemed to remain of the world; a small illuminated circle furrowed by ice laden wind.

They stopped.

"Egoro can't go on!" Raksa's cry was almost drowned by the howling wind.

Draco had to strain his ears to hear the words. He felt numb, muscles stiff. Aching from remaining motionless so long, on hard chitin. But his mind was still alert, like a shark smelling blood.

"All right" Draco called back, more for himself than for Raksa, as he surely would not be able to hear him.

Malfoy let himself slide down the side of the spider awkwardly. And when he stepped onto the snow, he sank to his thighs, getting chilled to the bones.

The dark lord has to be furious.

It was at times like this, when one really understood how huge was the grip that Voldemort had on the world. His darkness affected all like poison, even dyeing nature itself. The only positive thing about it, was that his anger was always easy to predict. Draco hoped his moodiness meant good news for the resistance.

He approached Raksa through the snow. The widow was restless, smelling the air, breathing deeply. Suddenly it was as if he had caught something, his body fell completely still for a moment, and frowned. Then turned his head toward him.

"We should head back, the storm will soon get worse!" Harry had not perceived it until they were in the open, outside the forest, where the scent of the trees and creatures could not mask the smell of ice and thunder. They had to seek shelter before it got, much, much worse.

"NO! You promised to take me to Hogwarts!" They had not come this far to turn back now. They were so close ... fear tripled in his chest wanting to stop his pulse.

"If we continue now the storm will break on us!" A gust of wind hit them threatening to extinguish the magical flame, forcing them to shrink an instant.

The cry, full of fear, anger and pain, of Draco rose above the gale with a fury comparable to the storm.

"THE STORM IS ALREADY ON US! WE WON'T MANAGE TO RETURN TO THE NEST IN TIME! HOGWARTS IS MUCH CLOSER!"

Harry gritted his teeth and looked around. The storm was getting worse. They could not stand there arguing.

"Fuck! We will go to Hogwarts, okay! But don't stray away from me!" Then he looked at the acromantula, restless in the increasingly powerful storm. "Go back to the forest Egoro! We will continue forward!"

The spider stayed a moment longer, undecided, not wanting to leave his master in the storm, but at the order he ended losing himself in the demonic darkness, back to the Dark Forest.

"Come on!" Harry called to Malfoy, and they began their walk through hell.

 **oOo**

Draco didn't know how long they had been walking for; minutes, hours ... time was no longer measurable. In the terrible storm every step was a struggle.

He stumbled.

"Malfoy!"

Harry tangled his fingers around Malfoy's narrow waist, pulling the blond against his chest before the he could collapse in the snow.

Draco shook his head to clear it. Hogwart's lights were right in front of them. Ghostly orange reflections, in the dark, behind the pale curtain of the blizzard.

The icy wind was burning in his lungs, drowning his breathing. His lips felt chapped, his facial skin raw, body numb, blood slow. Every step was a fight against the storm. And now, when so short a walk was left, he felt his body beginning to fail.

Draco forced himself to straighten up.

He would be an idiot, if he thought he could continue their current pace. And Draco was many things, but never an idiot.

He put his arm around the shoulders of the widow, despite the dislike of physical contact.

"Help me go on!" came his hoarse cry, quasi broken on the cold, but the willpower behind it seemed to burn in the sound.

Harry felt his instinct creep inside, and hit the back of his mind with a spark of desire. It was almost a day since he had left his spider free, and the arachnid was starting to get impatient.

Having their submissive so close, to feel his body against their own, hear the fire that warmed the blond inside... it was enough to wake the beast and piss him off.

He did not understand why he had to stay caged. Why he was not allowed to satisfy a desire they both felt.

The human gritted his teeth, forcing the animal side to sit still, even if he clawed wildly against him, giving Harry a headache.

"Okay." - The furious growl just made increase his cerebral patter. He started with Malfoy. Each step accompanied by a furious internal insult.

 **oOo**

(Hermione)

"Hey Neville. How's the round?"

"There's nothing new. O, it's relay time already?"

He yawned, stretching his muscles, stiff after hours sitting in the same position. "I had not noticed."

Hermione smiled gently, noting the brand that the wall had left on his cheek. Neville had fallen asleep again.

"Go on, and take some rest. You obviously need to." The irony in her words, made Neville blush in shame. He had not meant to fall asleep, but there was so little to do...

"See you at breakfast Hermione." he barely whispered with a shy smile.

Hermione watched him go; A young, burly man, though good-natured, much like a youthful version of Santa Claus, with his calm and cheerful blue eyes, and the peace he carried with himself, you could almost breathe. He looked a little rumpled, stubbly, hair unkempt ... but nearly all members of the order had the same unkempt appearance.

It's hard to worry about how you look, when you constantly have the threat of death over your head.

And yet, there were innocence, joy, and peace, in Hogwarts which at intervals could be seen here and there; in Neville's eyes, in the liveliness of Hugo and Rose, in the affection that could be seen flourish between Fleur and Bill... It was easy to remember why they fought for, when one was near them. But it was also just as easy to see the cost of that struggle. One just had to go outside to find the heavy price they had all paid ...

She shook her head.

"I'm just thinking about him thanks to the storm."

Mione sat in the chair beside the huge wooden doors, ready for another long night of reading. Usually there was not much else to do in the night shifts. And today, well, all she wanted was to sink her mind in a book and forget. Mainly the loneliness she could almost breathe in the empty hall, but also a very old memory that surfaced on nights like this.

"Harry ..."

From her pocket she took out a half-read book, of yellowed and wrinkled pages. Her attention only half in it. The other half watched the memory of a teenager in a storm equal to this.

 **oOo**

The hissing wind blew through the cracks in doors and windows, to freely run by the high stone ceilings, speaking to anyone who wanted to hear of the blizzard running outside.

Playing with the torches along the walls, to create mystical and weird shadows.

And enchanting the vast empty entrance arch, its dimly lit staircase and high ceilings, with the spirit of wetlands and ancient caves.

In its presence the empty space seemed mysterious, and lonely, despite the delicacy of the stone reliefs and polished marble slabs.

The sound of a knock on wood, came suddenly, echoed on the walls, and rose to the ceiling, twisting and resonating, like the tolling of the bells of a crypt.

Hermione stood instantly, the book slipping from her hands to the ground, while her wand appeared in them with the swiftness of a snake.

She turned to the door.

"Who ...?" - All possible arrivers came to her mind. But tonight there was not any scheduled return. 'Refugees?' she thought. It had happened before, that some nights refugees would arrive. People fleeing the oppressive rule of the dark lord. Although they became increasingly rare, as Death Eater patrols augmented in number, and Voldemort seized power to begin poisoning people against the resistance they represented.

Her eyes narrowed.

'Death Eaters?' It was impossible to cross Hogwart's magical barriers if you came carrying bad intentions. 'No. It can not be. The alarms have not gone off.'

Refugees then.

Still, when she approached the door, it was with her full repertoire of spells at the tip of her tongue. Prevention was better than sorrow. A hard lesson she had learned in the most painful way.

"Who is there?" She called.

"Hermione?" Someone answered.

The male voice stole her breath. She could not believe it. Until she recalled the network of spells covering the entrance, courtesy of Gringotts former goblins. Detectors to reveal any spell, potion, or ruse, that may had altered the appearance of the visitors.

It could not be anyone but him.

'He's alive!'

"Draco!" Hastily she fought against the bolt.

When she opened the door, snow and wind came in with the two figures that had to help re-close it. But when the bolt was thrown back in place...

She wrapped her arms around the blonde with all her strength. They staggered and nearly fell. But neither of them cared.

Hermione hiccupped between sobs, like a child who has been found by her mother, when she was believed lost. The weight in her soul lightened when she felt Draco return the embrace.

"Merlin ... We thought you were dead! When we learned that you had entered the forest …" She felt tears escaped between her eyelids. "Everyone said it was impossible that you survived." she whispered just, in a broken voice, burying her face in his chest, inhaling his scent, convincing herself that it was indeed him. No one but Draco smelled like fine powder of myrrh. The expensive perfume calmed her senses, as nothing else could have.

Draco smiled against the tangle of her brown hair, escaping crazy in all directions of the precarious ponytail.

He had not even realized how much he had needed that hug, until he received it. The pain of the last days peacefully dissolving in the heat of his best friend. He could hardly believe he had managed to arrive on time.

"I'm fine Mione. I'm fine."

Caught on one another, neither noticed the tumult running on the only other one present.

 **oOo**

At that moment Harry could have killed her.

All she had done to him, everything she had betrayed, and there she was hugging MALFOY. As if nothing had changed, save the **one** she was processing her love to.

Granger looked a little more mature, a bit taller, but she had the same crazy hair, the same bright brown eyes, the same smile.

She may have looked rumpled and tired, but there weren't any major differences with the teenager he recalled.

How was she able to look in the mirror every morning, and not vomit at the treacherous rat reflected there? She had abandoned Harry, and apparently latter changed him for Malfoy. Not even knowing what she had done, had Harry thought she would sink so low.

The memories he had buried, and had half convinced himself he had forgotten, began to throb in the depths of his deepest mind, wanting to wake up.

Harry took a step back, away from both of them, and the scene that was unfolding before him. Desiring to kill, but knowing he could not. However, containing his instinct was so difficult...

Nevertheless, remembering why he had to do so, helped him maintain control. Harry Potter was ten years dead, and it was better to keep it that way.

So he forced himself to remain calm ... until the moment when the lips, fleshy and female, fell on the cheek of the slytherin.

Possessiveness burned him inside like phosphorus. His widow part launched against the bars of his will in a savage blow. The headache reverberated through his nerves like high voltage.

He took another step back.

Harry gritted his teeth, clenched his fists. His whole body tense. One desire tinting his impulses; kill her. He could feel his fangs in the flesh of his gums, wishing to surface.

'Calm down, I need to calm down.' he told himself, grabbing all that instinct, and brutally pushing it back to the dark of his mind. Psychic creature claws, tore everything in their path in his descent to the cage. Tender cerebral nerves burning in pain. But at least the desire to kill was controllable again.

He looked at Malfoy.

Jealousy, anger, hatred in his eyes. A cocktail, a bomb just waiting for the right moment to explode.

 **oOo**

When they calmed down, and slowly left the hug ...

"Hermione, I need you to gather the council. There's something you should know."

 **oOo**

(Ron)

Hermione had entered their room, forced him to his feet, and set him out to Dumbledore's office, before hastily leaving to warn other board members. Or so he understood. Without much explanations in the process.

It all had left a very tired Ron Weasley, in a very old pitch robe over pajamas, walking down a dimly lit corridor at midnight. And quite confused about it.

And now he also had the misfortune of meeting Snape in the hallway, obviously in his way to Dumbledore's office too.

The redhead looked at the somehow impeccably dressed potion master. Fully awake and alert, even at this hour of the night. Walking beside Ron as if instead of him, there was only air.

The urge to complain, was too much for Ron's sleepy brain.

"What is so important we have to get out of bed at this hour?" he said, morose and sulking.

Severus pursed his lips as he watched the young Wesley complain as if he still was eleven, wrapped in a horrible orange robe who he had just thrown carelessly over his pajamas. Plush slippers peeking over the edge, and hair jumping in all directions around his sleep pressed face.

The displeasure scurried down his back like a long legged centipede, raising his temper. Severus could not understand how Albus had allowed this inept into the council, much less what purpose could his opinion serve.

His black thoughts darkening further, when the redhead began to scratch, not so covertly, his ass.

Immediately he pierced his gaze from his vantage height, annoyed beyond what could be considered appropriate at that time of night. His cold black eyes, digging into the blue sleepy ones of Ron Weasley.

"Perhaps Mr. Weasley would feel better, if we had let him sleep, rather than wake him from his sweet dreams to attend a tedious meeting on the future of our lives." - Sarcasm dripped down his throat as burning like battery fluid.

Ron snapped right back.

"I didn't say that Snape!" Outrage flushing red his skin to match the color of his hair.

The quiet, dignified voice of McGonagall, cut the altercation before it could get worse, while she arrived at their side.

"Can you please not get into pointless discussions at this time, Mr. Wesley? The rest of the board must already be waiting."

The former teacher joined them at the foot of the long staircase of Gryffindor's Tower. A warm wool coat of faded amber colour, wrapping her body and her flannel nightgown. However, her hair was pulled into a perfect bun, dignified even when she was newly awakened.

The appearance of both adults, making Ron feel like a child again.

He could not help but stay quietly furious the rest of the way, to the delight of Snape, and the peace of mind of Minerva.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

He had always known that he would return. Because somehow Hogwarts ran through his blood, and he belonged to this place almost as much as he belonged to the forest.

But not to its inhabitants.

Of all the creatures that he had meet in both places, the beings of the woods shared with him much more than the humans who lived here ever could. Although for a time he had believed something different. And the revelation still hurt.

The pain burned inside, under the psychic scar that had covered the wound, still there despite the time that had tried to erase it.

Being in the same place as those who had done so much harm to him, and in any other circumstances, he might have sought revenge.

He could almost feel the warm comfort that would have granted him, the still warm blood on his hands, it's rusty taste much sweeter than honey on his lips, and the notion of knowing that those rats no longer existed to harm anyone else.

But the pale figure walking in front of him, acted as a brake on that desire.

Malfoy.

The blond led the march through the dimly lit empty corridors. His white hood covered Malfoy's face in shadows, but his rapid pace, almost nervous, and determined, said to Harry everything he needed to know. Whatever it was he wanted to talk with the council, was tearing his nerves with steel teeth.

Much like how Harry was feeling the bite of instinct inside; Repressed anger, hatred, and desire. And the widow strumming against him at the back of his skull, from the darkness where Harry had banished him.

For now Malfoy's promise slowed him, but blood was roaring through his veins, awaiting the time they finally could be alone.

He was fulfilling their agreement. His submissive would also have to do truth of their bargain. And only the promise of later relieving all the cacophony of feelings in that pale body, was keeping his fangs covered.

Before being aware, both were already at the entrance to Dumbledore's office. The gargoyle moved away from their path with only one word from the slytherin.

The spacious office of the director at Hogwarts, had long since ceased to be the warm, golden and always candy treasured place that many students had visited during happy school days. With the war knocking at the barriers daily, the room had become, by necessity, the meeting point of the high council of the Order of the Phoenix.

Its walls occupied by maps, and shelves overflowing with books, arcane magic items, and yellowed by time scrolls, around a heavy dark wood table surrounded by upholstered thick and worn chairs.

The always-burning fireplace warmed the room. And of the old desk and the candy that had been the hallmark of the place, there was no trace, replaced by a cabinet of potions full of dark mixtures in delicate glass vials, homemade jugs and jars, labelled with rusty paper tags hand written in black ink.

The room was so different from the one he remembered, that for an instant, Harry was not sure this was the place of his memoirs. But the candles had the same old smell. And the landscape beyond the glass panels, was like an echo of the past, just beyond the violent snowstorm.

"Draco, I'm glad you're okay. Come, take a seat. The others will arrive in a bit." The somewhat raspy voice, after almost ten years of absence...

Dumbledore had been an old man when Harry had been at school, and that was then years back, but despite age, his voice rang as full of wisdom as he remembered, and the Guardian did not need to turn around to know who it was.

Hatred darkened his senses like a blanket. If there was someone who Harry wanted to behead more intensely than the rest of those wizards, that was him. Harry had confided in Albums Dumbledore more than in anyone else. He had loved the man like he would his own grandfather. Had done what he had asked. And he…

The muscles in his back tightened like ropes, but none of the other two ones present, noticed anything under the camouflage of his robe.

He turned very slowly.

 **oOo**

Draco stepped to Dumbledore, accepting the chair offered, and taking his place at the council table amongst the high chairs, near where the former director was sitting.

Harry turned away from them, seeking refuge in the darkest corner of the room, hiding in the shadows. Where he could observe, and in turn not be observed.

Dumbledore saw the actions of both critically.

"Draco, you have not introduced me to your companion."-The quiet smile he gave, waiting for his explanation, did not fool the blond. After working at Dumbledore's service for almost a decade, he knew that was not a request, it was an order.

He glanced at the figure hidden in the shadows.

"His name is Raksa. He was the one who saved me in the Dark Forest."- Draco spoke in a unstressed and quiet voice, locking away, with all the strength of his will, his feelings.

Dumbledore saw his eyes flooded with secrets and silence. And curiosity prodded him inside.

It was in Draco's nature common to hide secrets. But his eyes had never been so guarded in his presence before. Barriers of occlumency, like walls and barbed steel.

"Draco …?"

The blond lifted a hand asking for silence.

"Raksa is here to help in the war. He is an ally, and I take responsibility for him as a wizard and as a man." A promise that no wizard would give lightly. The intrinsic magic in those words, often dangerous. "However, I request ... No, I beg you; Do not pry. If something comes up that you should know, I'll let you know."

Draco knew it was much what he asked for. A stranger in the castle could be a danger to everyone. But he was the best spy of the order, and had sacrificed so much over the last decade for them, he hoped his loyalty, and his word, will be enough. Because talking about what happened was not an option. Not now. Not ever.

Their eyes met for a moment, until the old man looked away, apparently satisfied with what he had seen in the eyes of the spy.

"As you will. If you do not want to talk about it, nobody will ask."

Relief flooded Draco, but only for the time it took for the door to open letting inside Snape, McGonagall and Ron Weasley. Even now, with years of forced camaraderie between them, Draco did not like the redhead. And with the notion that there was a spy among them, his displeasure took hues of dangerous suspicion.

And it only increased with his reception.

"So you were alive, eh? Slippery as an snake." Ron tried to be nice as he plopped down on one of the free chairs, well away from Malfoy. Ignoring the disapproving glances of Snape and McGonagall. That was all he was willing to make as an effort to welcome him. He had never liked the blonde, and truth was, it wasn't very decent to pretend otherwise.

Draco nodded, because he felt obliged to prove he had heard him, but nothing more. His attention on any possible sign of betrayal he could see in Wesley, and in Minerva's words.

"I'm glad you're well, Mr. Malfoy." McGonagall's formality might had veiled her feelings, but the affection and relief were clear in her kind brown eyes.

Draco smiled back warmly.

"Thank you, I'm glad to be back. However, I bring grave news."

Dumbledore drew himself seriously. Stopping the conversation for the moment.

"We'll hear them when we are all gathered. Black and Remus must already be arriving with Miss Granger."

 **oOo**

(Snape)

The smell hit him just across the threshold, so strong, pure and inebriated of life that for a moment his mind went white, and he had to make a conscious effort of will to pull the threads of his brain and continue walking. All in a fluid second that did not allow anyone to perceive the slip.

He sat where it was expected of him, facing his nephew, watching him with inscrutable eyes. He did not need to find out who it belonged to that essence.

Although more than thirty years had passed since he had last found that perfume, his instinct could not forget it.

The quasi golden aroma, sticky as honey, of a pregnant member of his race.

And somehow, although it didn't seem possible, close, only a few meters away, the spicy smell of a male protecting his submissive.

Draco had been lost in the Forbidden Forest ...

'Draco, what have you done?'

 **oOo**

Remus, Sirius, and Hermione gave the password to the gargoyle and climbed the spiral staircase to the office. It had taken longer to raise Remus, who had just returned from a mission and had been sleeping in exhaustion. But finally all three made it to the meeting with more or less hurry.

The two men had hardly had time to put on pants and shirt, Sirius's hair looked rumbled, and Remus tried to clear the sleep from his brain by rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, you have arrived. Sit down, please. Remus, sorry you have to postpone your rest. I know you must be exhausted." Dumbledore spoke with a smile as they took their places.

 **oOo**

Sirius gave a nod of welcome and pride to his cousin.

All the tough warrior allowed himself in showing affection since the death of his nephew, Harry. The pain had hardened the cheerful old marauder, and now very few could be counted among those who were able to stand up to the seasoned sorcerer. Far fewer were those who had his affection.

Draco was one of the selected few who he still cared about, and the spy shared the feeling completely. But both were men of masks, that kept their feelings with zeal, and with so many people around, they silenced the euphoria of knowing that they were alive, keeping emotion for when they were alone.

Contenting themselves with an exchange of greetings, and gazes.

Remus however was another matter. Tonks influenced him with her open and funny character. Everyone expected he would embrace the blond. But instead, he hardly dared to give him a couple of slaps on the shoulder before sitting a few of seats at his right, with total calm.

Perhaps he was really too tired, but Hermione felt there was something more.

Dumbledore's voice mowed the strange moment, ushering in the conclave.

"Now that we're all together. It should be noted first, we have a guest."- he looked toward the figure hidden in the shadows of the back of the room, away from all others. "The man who is with us today saved Draco in the Dark Forest, and has come to assist us in the war. His name is Raksa." He looked around at all the present ones, who gazed with varying degrees of curiosity to the unknown man. Then, he dipped his next words in seriousness. "That's all that will be discussed at this table, about him. It is a matter that only concerns both men involved, and I ask that you abstain from delving deeper into the issue."

Ron snorted in disbelief, but a look of Mione was enough to silence him. The rest accepted the matter with strangeness, but ready to leave it alone ...

Severus's gaze hardened, and he made sure to drill the werewolf with it, his eyes like black daggers of mirror. The message clear as water; If you say something about the state Draco is in, I will rip your throat.

 **oOo**

(Remus)

Remus felt it the second he stepped on the threshold. The whiff wrapped and snaked around him, like wisps of jam and honey.

The almost smothering aroma of a pregnant creature.

Sweet, attractive, warm ... His eyes instantly sought the owner of the perfume ... and he found Draco. The shock left him speechless, just the instant it took for the smell of the dominant to hit him too; Tangy as the smoke embers of a campfire. A warning for anyone who dared touch that what belonged to him.

But ... there was something familiar about all this. He followed the thread of his memory, however among its moldings and ledges there was nothing that had this almost violent smell. He traced the source with his pupils, a figure hidden in the shadows of the far corner of the room.

The movement of Hermione and Sirius sitting, returned his attention to the present, but only precariously.

He faltered.

Remus wasn't sure what to do. But in any case, he decided not to ask in front of so many people. He sat down after greeting Draco, because not doing so would have been too strange. But he was careful not to make too much physical contact with the young blonde, in care of what the dominant might feel like a transgression on his privileges.

What left him even more perplexed, was the warning look Snape gave him when sitting. Did that mean that Severus knew what was happening?

 **oOo**

(Draco)

Draco instantly noticed the strange behavior of the former affable professor ... and the realization lighted his skull, like post images after a very strong light.

How could he have forgotten Remus's sharp smell sense? Throughout the hurricane of what happened, he had not contemplated the very real possibility of Lupin perceiving the truth. And now, his only consolation was to see that the werewolf seemed willing to wait to speak alone.

Tension grew in his chest. And his barriers of will that had remained standing, trembled.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

In the corner, wrapped by the refuge of the shadows, Harry saw all this, and silently cursed himself for not having thought of the lupine before coming here. Now Remus knew. Maybe not what they were, but what they meant to each other, and what Malfoy kept in his breast.

Snape's gaze ... he had also seen his eyes, icy cold and knowing. But the former Potions master was human, and could not know exactly what he was sensing. Although with Snape he was never sure. He was too strange, too circumspect.

He would have to be monitored.

Lupin, however, had to be neutralized immediately. Because if the wizards learned what they were; a pair of a species thought to be extinct, so powerful, so desired, that had been hunted to annihilation. He had no doubt what would happen.

Perhaps they would live a couple of years more, enough to bring to the world some offspring that they could keep, then they would be on the shelves of some potions master as pieces well-labeled in jars.

And with them the fate of the Dark Forest.

His only asset, that the werewolf, never before had found the essence of a widow. He could not know what kind of creatures they were. Just that they were a couple and that the submissive was expecting.

Things that any magical being will feel.

Hopefully, perhaps he will leave them alone. Especially as it was apparent he cared for Malfoy. But if necessary ... Harry would kill him.

The arachnid did not even need to think about it.

For the one who had once been like a second father, he bore rancor now, borne of his painful betrayal.

He hided a little more in the shadows, watching all those who deserve to die, and carefully placating his desires.

He found that after the first encounter with Granger, and the few minutes ago one with Dumbledore, the work of repression was getting easier. There was only one he had not gazed at more than an instant, and that he barely had the strength to hate, so great was still the pain of his abandonment.

His godfather, the only father she had ever known; Sirius Black.

Harry caught the pain and locked it behind walls of indifference, and years of life as a guardian. Fixing his attention, on the only figure of the room, that could make him feel more than abhorrence; Malfoy.

The primary desire of the spider, hit the bars that kept his instinct in check, offering something more pleasant to contemplate.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

Draco took a deep breath. All eyes fell upon him, and he returned their gaze trying to ignore the anxiety in the pit of his stomach.

He could feel the eyes of Remus as a horrible burning sensation on his skin. He did not want to answer his questions. And he prayed in silence that Lupin will shut up, at least until the reunion was finished.

Draco stood up from his chair, face serene, feelings well hidden.

"You -all know that I have been discovered as a spy, and the Death Eaters followed me into the dark forest."

Ron snorted. Mione gave him a look. But nobody else evinced any interest in the redhead's reaction

The blonde's expression hardened, looking as strong and clear as bulletproof glass.

"What you don't know is that it was not for my carelessness I was discovered." Surprise made itself known around the table, with the sole exception of two impassive figures, Snape, and Black. "Someone at this table is a traitor." His words chilled the audience. Immediately chaos erupted.

"That is not possible! Do not try to blame someone else for your mistakes, Malfoy!"

"A spy among us?"

"Ronal shut up! You don't even know …"

"Could there be a mistake?"

Dumbledore stood up.

"Enough, be quiet." All fell silent before the leader of light. The old man turned to the blond, his eyes suddenly much more tired. "Are you sure Draco? It's a very serious accusation to make."

Draco sighed, suddenly exhausted as well.

"I wish I could say otherwise, but that's the truth."

Gazes met around the table. Who…?

"Severus, There is still some veritaserum in our pantries?"

The potions master denied at the words of the leader of light.

"No, there none left. If I had the ingredients I could make more, but our reserves are almost exhausted."

It was true.

The dark forest, the only source of ingredients actually accessible to the rebels, remaining a decade closed now. And getting the valuable substances through smugglers was not easy, or cheap. They could rarely afford to buy a small percentage of everything that was needed. Food was much more important.

"What do we do now then?" Soft, concerned, voiced Mione.

The director, his expression serious, made a decision.

"All right, tonight is too late. Let's go back to bed, and tomorrow I will meet with you for a session of legilimency."

Nobody liked the idea of allowing their minds to be invaded. But they knew there was no other way of making sure.

"And I'm sorry to resort to this, but until we know who the spy is, you will have to remain in your rooms. I will ask the house elves to stay with you to make sure."

Ron opened his mouth, but for once had the sense not to say anything.

McGonagall nodded.

"Albus, please call the elves so we can return to our beds."

 **oOo**

Soon the room began to empty, every wizard in hand with an elf.

Remus approached Draco, trying to reach him without attracting attention.

The blonde felt exhausted.

The trip through the storm, the tension, and everything that happened the last few days was taking its toll. And now that he had finally managed to give the message, he just wanted to get to his room and sleep for a few hours.

The problem was he could not. He did not need to look to know that Lupin was at his side.

"Remus, not now." He mumbled finally looking back at him. His pupils on the verge of appeal.

The Wolfman didn't let it slide, obvious concern on his face. He spoke in whispers too, so the rest would not hear them.

"Draco, you're not right. And this man who has come with you …"

"Stop. At least let me rest this night." Draco swallowed. He really did not want to talk about it. Not now. No never. And he needed time, time to think what lies he would tell.

"Draco …" Remus continued, unsure.

"Please."

Only the despair in his voice, and how quickly their turn to leave was approaching, made Remus nod in the end.

"Okay. We will speak in the morning."

"Thank you." The Slytherin muttered, stepping forward to leave in the company of the next elf. Ignoring the concern in the eyes of the lupine. Eager to get away from him as soon as possible.

Remus looked at the strange man, the dominant who had come with Draco. Somehow he seemed familiar ... And something told him that his presence here was something very, very, bad.

Raksa was already waiting at the door .

Snape did not approach. He decided to wait until they could talk alone.

 **oOo**

"Prixi will stay at the door, if the masters want to go out."

The small house elf, set to wait in front of the thick wooden door, of exquisitely wrought metal bands were carved serpents devoured each other, like a soldier in the midst of an important mission.

Draco nodded vaguely, not really paying attention, and closed the door leaving the creature out.

The room was very small. With so many refugees living in Hogwarts, space and resources were very limited. The door was all the luxurie in it. But Draco had never cared too much.

It was rare that he come here to sleep with his work as a spy. And things he could have asked for, will be better employed by any of the families of the castle.

It was located near the old Slytherin dorms. And his only window faced the lake bottom; A landscape of dark waters streaked with strange creatures, and vegetation bobbing like ghosts in the deeps. It's dead greenish luminesce, sliding down the furniture and walls.

A simple covered with thick blankets bed, a closet in one corner, a tiny desk, insufficient for all papers and books obsessively ordered upon him, and a chair in danger of losing one of its legs, were all the furniture.

Harry watched the space that the next several months would be their nest; Wet, uncomfortable and small. Insufficient for his spider shape.

He didn't like to feel so constrained. But his attention to such menial things lasted but a second, the second he saw they were alone. His instincts roared. The grip of the human side began to slacken.

Draco was facing back from the black widow, staring at the cracks in the wood on the door. Perhaps if he looked hard enough, the monster would disappear from his room.

"Malfoy." The hiss ran up his back with the sickening touch of a slug, and tied to memories he wanted to forget.

He swallowed, and closed his eyes. Yet, did not turn.

"Yes?"

Harry noticed the tiny tremor in the one word. And the anxiety inside him grew to be a devouring beast. All the pain, tension, hatred accumulated in a whirlwind of claws and fangs, eager to dig into white and creamy meat.

His voice came loaded with the hiss of the monster. "We have a deal, remember?"

Draco took a breath almost convulsively. He felt exhausted, drained of all his strength. He had no energy left for this.

"Now?" Please leave me alone tonight Let me rest tonight. He thought. But even in his internal begin, he knew there was no escape.

"Now." The hiss almost a growl.

Harry felt his breathing quicken. His chest expanding and contracting with the pace of the game.

Still he managed to keep the straps like steel cables over his spider. This would be their first time. Their first encounter without the hustle and effort to dominate the other. And he wanted to taste it. Although he knew the instinct would not be controlled much longer.

Draco finally opened his eyes. He turned slowly. The monster was only a couple of meters away. He blinked catching any sign of weakness in his eyes.

"Okay." A deal was a deal. And he needed the help of the creature in the war that was developing. Someone with immunity to magic, and the ability to move freely through the woods, was an invaluable resource.

He took a deep breath, trying to heal the cracks of his will before the start. "... It's okay." repeated softly. Just a tired whisper. He tangled his fingers in the thick white coat brooches, feeling awkward and numb while he unbuttoned them.

Draco dropped the item on the floor. He didn't think he could have put the fabric away without revealing any tremor. Instead he concentrated on his boots, taking them off, and abandoning them between the white snowcat fur. The sweater slipped over his head almost against his will, revealing the white and athletic extension of his torso and arms.

The widow watched him through the shadows of his hood. He could feel the intensity of his gaze, like a hot palm, pressing on his skin. He clutched the top button of his pants. His fingers began to shake. He wore nothing underneath. Draco kept his chin up, and the firm stance. But his eyes were like that of madmen, wide with terror.

Harry felt his fangs pierce the soft flesh of his gums, now exposed. Malfoy was so nervous that his fear was like a cloying perfume in the air. He could smell it, and taste it, and that only inflamed his desire. A low growl came from the bottom of his chest.

Pants slipped down Draco's long legs and fell to the ground. The touch of the fabric did nothing more than give him nausea.

He swallowed. Arms tense at his sides. Forcing himself to show his nakedness. Desiring to end it as soon as possible. He was too tired for this.

"Come." Raksa called. The hand that was extended for him, had claws and was covered with black chitin. Draco killed the shudder that climbed his epidermis, but felt his mouth dry, and his body icy.

Draco came to the monster.

His bare feet barely made any noise on the stone. The only sound he could hear, was that of his heart pumping madly.

Memories of the previous violation touched his mind with skeletal fingers, and for a moment, just a moment, he wanted to run. However, the sense of duty was stronger than the fear, and desire to protect his loved ones acted as chains which he could not escape. Anchoring him to this nightmare, and the wishes of the monster in front of him.

The Guardian grabbed his arm, pulling him closer. Touching his naked body, to his still dressed one. Feeling the spy wince and fight to contain his terror.

Harry was static, vibrant with such a powerful desire, he could barely contain it.

But still he wanted something more before being dominated by instinct. His human side wanted to humiliate, to make suffer, the enemy of his childhood, someone to dump-on, all the rage, pain and hatred of betrayal he was just forced to relive. Malfoy had to pay, if only a little, for it.

His hand slipped from the arm of the blond to his hip, and there, in a caress reached his belly covered in delicate, still tender, pink scars.

Right under his palm, between folds and shreds of flesh and nerves, was growing his seed.

The notion increased the desire tuning through him, marring his touch with a lick of possessiveness. Anger and desire, struggled to be heard above the other, and the cacophony of his mind.

"On your knees."

That phrase was enough.

Enough to wake Draco. All fatigue, exhaustion, and fear, which had been choking him, broke upon awakening his pride, will, and mind. His almost lifeless eyes flashed with anger.

"No." The word came out frozen, if it would have been liquid, it would have come out of his throat as powder ice.

Harry's claws stopped on the skin they had been stroking, completely taken by surprise. And yet to see the fire back into the steel gray eyes, grabbed something inside him.

"No?" he muttered. The incredulous tone, tinged with passion. Inside he knew that this was the submissive he wanted; Proud, unruly, passionate.

The spy raised his chin proudly, and the light of the lake slipped through his silver hair like a poisonous green halo.

"No." he repeated sharpening his gaze, his shoulders straight, ready to make war. "The deal was you could fuck me." The words spoken on the hardest and most brutal way, making clear that they did not affect him. Harry felt himself purr. "No that I would be your slave, Raksa. So either you get down to it, or leave me be." His tone like a steel knife. Withering, cutting, and poisonously sweet.

The sudden attack of Draco, raised Harry's instinct as nothing else could have.

He smiled.

"I think it just." The sensuous hiss stroked Draco's lips a second before his lips came into contact with the arachnid's. A touch, just a moist meeting of planes, lips firmly closed, a warm cares that lasted only a moment.

Harry pulled his hood of. His spidery part was finally on play, but his human side still prevailed, and the changes in his face were not so extreme.

Draco looked up when their mouths separated. The green irises that met his were almost human, black skin, plagued by small chitin plates around the eyes and strong jaw, spider fangs protruded between the fleshy lips, crazy black hair that seemed to have been bitten, rather than cut, framed the strange face.

Never before had the monster looked so human.

The chitin chips gleamed in the light, like black sparks. And the curiosity led him to raise his hand unconsciously, until his fingers were a breath away from touching the skin of the cheekbone of the other.

"Go on." Raksa's voice trailed his fingers the last millimeter. The skin was slightly rough, but the chitin was smooth as a polished metal surface. He had not noticed before.

Their eyes caught for a moment. Something called them on the other.

Draco inhaled sharply and wanted to step away, put distance between them, but Harry was faster, taking his arm.

"¡BOUMMMM !"

The ground shook violently. Harry stumbled on the wave that vibrated through the stone as an earthquake, and fell to the ground with a groan, collapsed sideways, dragging Malfoy with him.

"What…?!"

 **To be continue**


	10. Falling down

Note: There it goes chapter 10. A little later than usual, as I have been on a trip, and didn't have much time to write. My poor beta has been working around the clock to have this on time. Yet, it's finally done. Yei! ; ) We hope you like it

And now …

Welcome to:  
 **  
SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 10-Falling down.**

The branches of the great tree were hanging tiredly, weighted down by the years, the hawthorn, mistletoe and ivy, which had been growing on him.

The moss that covered it like a mantle, was of a discolored grey. And his trunk, that rose in the forest as a tower, had the fragile dye of old crust.

The news had affected deeply the great father of the forest.

" Soul, how could you have left him go? " The sigh as wind between his leaves, fell on the elder vela accusingly.

The acromántulas that were climbing over the great Father of the forest, fidgeted. All of them knew the vela. As old as he was, nearly everyone in the forest did, but now their silent gazes were like mirrors, for all the recognition in them.

"Harry is not a boy any longer, he's a man. None of us should forget it." Soul answered calmly, before the tree.

Where others would have bend with respect, Soul had never seen the need. They knew each other for so long, though the spirit sometimes forgot the bows of familiarity that tied them together.

The branches waved softly, in a non-existent breeze, the fret of leaves turning into a disagreeable sound.

"You know how much we need Harry, how much depends on him. And now that finally he has found a submissive, you allow his return to the human world." The words came out soft, scarcely discernible. Delicate and aggrieved. "Perhaps you don't value the life of all those that live in the forest?"

Soul shook his head tiredly, a shig weighting in his old fallen shoulders.

"You know that's not true. I have always valued the life of the forest. More than I have valued any other thing. You, better than anyone, should know it." The old vela raised his gaze to the great tree. His blue eyes were veiled by age, opaque, yet, nevertheless, the pain that was reflected in them by a moment, was bleeding still, in spite of the decades that had passed.

A twig got up to rub his cheek. An almost remorseful cares. Soul put a hand on it, as if to retain the delicate leaves against his skin. But the contact was so soft, that the spirit might have liberated himself, almost without trying, if he had wanted it.

However, none of them resigned the touch.

"Why, Soul? " The words were a strange ripple, probably … Soul thought that there was sadness in them. But if it was, he could not say.

"I wanted to give them time." He mumbled.

For the first time since the vela began to speak, something more than surety dyed his words. Slightly sweet and sour, and fragile … "Time to know each other, away from the responsibilities that would have pressed on Harry otherwise."

"These responsibilities will not disappear because you have sent him far away from them." The spirit sounded so tired and elderly…

"I know. But we have taken so much from this young man… doesn't he deserve the opportunity to be happy?" His old wrinkled fingers, caressed the dry leaves resting on his skin.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

The ground trembled violently.

Draco and Raksa stumbled on the wave that vibrated through the stone like an earthquake, but they did not fall.

"Wha-?!"

Gingy entered running hysterically, stumbling in his hurry to reach them, screaming with a high voice senseless things, Draco did not have time to try and decipher.

"SUT UP!" Draco's shout managed to silence the domestic elf, but did not stop his ears for being twisted between his little hands, eyes enormous and tearful.

The castle trembled again, shaken as if something immense had struck it. Powder started falling from the black stone of the ceiling. But this time, Draco was prepared and he managed to remain standing without stumbling, the elf, on the other hand, tripled, and would have hit the wall, had Raksa not been there to grab him.

"What's that?" asked Raksa

Malfoy did not answer, already taking the first clean tunic of the wardrobe, and gathering the boots and the coat left in the ground.

Raksa turned to Gingy, with an amiability Draco had deemed him incapable of.

"What's happening?"

The elf whined on the verge of crying, and Draco felt his patience quiver while he dressed with almost violent movements.

"… w … us … .we … "-big teardrops glittered in his glassy bulging eyes.

Harry put a hand on the shoulder of the domestic elf, kindly bending towards him.

"Calm down Gyngy, you can say it." the serenity of his voice managed to calm the little one enough, so he could suck up his snot, and finish a phrase.

"… We are … are being attacked."

Draco closed his fists a second, with the cords of the boot he was tying, pressed between his fingers.

It was not the first time that Hogwarts had been attacked, but it was the first one in which the castle had trembled. At least one of the barriers must had been broken. Yet, it was impossible for someone outside the castle to break them without activating all the multiple alarms in place.

It must have been someone already inside.

"The spy." Fury ignited his veins, bubbling through his blood stream, and turning the word into molten metal.

"Very well Gyngy. You might return with the other elves." he commanded.

The small one swallowed distressingly. His ears trembling.

"Gyngy cannot leave. Master Dumbledore ordered him to monitor Draco Malfoy." his high voice grating on the spy's nerves.

The spy turned to scream at him, his patience running thin, but Raksa was already speaking.

"Imperius." The enormous bulging eyes expanded furthermore, waiting for the orders of the arachnid. "Gyngy, return with the other elves, help them, and do not tell anybody what you have seen in this room."

The use of an unforgivable on the elf, would surely warn Dumbledore, but as things stood, Draco didn't think he would mind.

Raksa's aptitude for casting magic without a wand, caught his attention for a second, -Was it something exclusive of him? Or could all widows focus their magic without help?- but only the second he took to remember the danger lurking outside.

"Yes master." Gingy disappeared with a pop, the exact moment in which Hogwarts's heavy structure started trembling again, squeaking ominously.

This time the quake too powerful to remain standing. Draco staggered …

"Malfoy!" Raksa's arms were around him before he could fall, strong and sure. His nymph-like eyes fixed on him with a violent and protective intensity that made Draco feel …icy. A strange kind of cold seized his entrails, in response to the danger and to the protective contact of the other. A sensacíon that made him tremble … nicely, softly …

He blinked, caught in the moment, trying to understand the sensacíon. The strangeness, and furthermore, the rare familiarity. Since, somehow, it didn't feel his, but at the same time, he owned it with an intensity deeper, than that of any other feeling he had had before.

"Are you ok?" Raksha's deep hissing voice, touched, without him wishing it, with the worry of the black widow awake in Harry's mind.

Such care surprised the blond for a second… Until he remembered the reason behind his protective attitude: the hatchling.

His gray irises cooled to a steely hue.

The new tremor stopped, and Draco took the opportunity to liberate himself from those arms forcibly. Seeking to put distance between the two of them, which his mind needed desperately to recover the composure.

Harry allowed Malfoy to move away, observing him seriously for the first time.

Draco, suddenly, seemed... Fragile.

With the wrinkled clothes shaping his thin body, the ashy pallor of his skin … too pale for a human being ... and the almost broken weariness of his enormous gray eyes.

He looked ragged.

"Malfoy …"

"I'm ok." The words came out hard and flat, credible. But he was not. He was not. And Harry could smell the lie in the sweat of his icy skin. Yet, he decided not to insist, now they had bigger problems to take care of.

Outside their room shouts were starting to be heard.

Draco opened the door and went out to the corridor, where other people living in the dungeons had been woken up by the assault, now coming out of their chambers too, to run towards the stairs and the top floors in nightshirts and pajamas, wands in hand.

Parents were shouting hysterically as they pulled their children along, fleeing. While several members of the order were hurrying to gather the smaller ones in groups they could carry to safety.

Big brothers hugged their kid brothers, who were crying disconsolately.

Scared mothers gave their farewell to their spouses, as they went with the members of the order, their children in their arms. Women and men ran up the stairs, and in the distance, the roar of the battle could be heard.

Harry pulled the hood above his inhuman face, and both went out to the marabunta. However, as they advanced the tide of people grew more and more, until they were drowned by the crowd. Pushed, pulled, and thrown, by all those persons trying to escape.

Nonetheless Malfoy did not seem to notice, fighting to reach the stairs, trying desperately to help repel the forces of the Dark Lord, to save the ones he loved, and who he did not know where they could be among all the madness; His godfather Severus, his best friend Mione, her children Rose and Hugo, who were like his own nephews, and also, the only family member in whom he still could trust, Sirius, and the friend who had trusted in him when nobody had, Remus, and his son Teddy … All of them could be somewhere among all that howling meath. And Draco was rapidly understanding the danger of the situation.

 **oOo**

Inside his ribcage his heart drummed frantically, as each passed second further nailed how grave the assault was.

Draco fighted to advance faster, but it was almost impossible. The stairs could be in another world entirely, for all he could reach them.

Nonetheless he continued pushing ahead, determined. Raksa followed closely, not allowing the waves of people to separate them. Charging ahead pass anyone who interposed between him and his submissive, no matter who the one was.

The castle trembled again, much more violently that before, the whole structure groaned, and several fragments of the ceiling fell down. Enormous pieces of rock that smashed people under them. Horrible crawling sounds of bone being ground to pulp.

The shouts grew to be unbearable. Howls of horror, panic and agony. Everything got out of control. The crowd wanted to escape, and there did not seem to matter who was the one between them and the exit.

Draco was pushed violently, stumbled. If he fell down he would be trampled by the crowd. Someone struck his legs, he lost his balance completely, and panted knowing he was going to fall under the feet of the howling mob, as he stretched an arm trying to grab something in a last desperate gesture of survival… Raksa's claws closed around his wrist, pulling him towards the refuge of his body.

Draco fell against the powerful torso, and the arms of the viuda surrounded him protectively. The widow's chitin, hard as steel, plates, acting like a shield against the marabunta around them.

Malfoy panted, hyperventilating, the anxiety of the whole situation striking him with violence. He had to find Rose, Sirius, Severus, Mione, Remus, Hugo, Teddy… before it was too late!

Even now, if he found them, they could still fight back. Even escape if it was the only option left.

Everything trembled again, more shouts, shrieks, more pieces of the ceiling falling on them. The whole structure resounded as struck by a gigantic monster. Enormous fragments of rock fell on the crowd, squashing the wretches who were trying to escape.

All sanity got lost.

Harry caught Draco against the wall, protecting him from the rain of stone, his body as a screen against the unleashed hell.

Some of the wizards and witches tried to stop the rocks with magic, but almost at once became obvious that it was not having any effect. The Dark Lord seemed to want to demolish the castle on them, and somehow he had found a way to stop any protective magic from touching the stone. A work that must have taken months to develop, years to plan. A task he could have never completed without help.

"The spy." The word torn and drowned in his head, while he saw over Raksa's shoulder, how people were trodden by others, were pushed, WERE KILLED in their attempt to flee.

He listened to the shouts of the moribund ones. The roar of the crowd fallen into madness. It was like hell itself had fallen on them. A hell in which Raksa alone kept him standing. Protecting him with his body. Sheltering Draco from the blows and pushes, with everything he had.

…

"Draco!" the shout scarcely stood out from the cacophony around, but it light inside him like a spark. He turned his head, trying to see the one who had called him. "DRACO!" this time stronger.

And he saw him.

His godfather, Severus, was fighting to reach them. He opened his mouth to call back … And the whole of Hogwarts inclined to its side, part of the bases, finally, giving up under the assault.

The world seemed to come down with the collapse of the castle, in a wave that threw them against the wall in which Raksa and sheltered them, with the violence of a level 7 earthquake.

Draco got paralyzed seeing it happen in slow motion, his mind slowed down with pure horror. Knowing that they would be killed. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the impact happen. And he felt the guardian curl around him, covering him with his body, before the wave hit them squarely.

The impact was brutal.

Everything trembled, shouts, howlings. The blow threw Raksa against Draco almost squashing the spy with his musculature, the powerful arms anchored in the rock the only thing that managed to prevent it, giving the blond a minimal space to shelter in.

They were swallowed by the tide of meat.

The whole structure of the building continued trembling, this time continuously. Hogwarts was falling on them. Blood splashed them both when more rocks detached from the structure and fell on the rebels. An ominous crackle that threatened to deafen them, and the whole top floor started falling down.

Raksa roared.

In his small human form, he couldn't protect Draco. Instinct burned him within. And he suddenly didn't mind if they saw him for what he was, since in any case, they were dead if he didn't change.

The still conscious ones around them shrieked in pure horror, while Harry roared again, and his body destroyed the tunic as he transformed, growing and expanding up to the enormous acromántula that was his animal form. His corpachón taking up almost the whole width of the corridor. The ceiling finally gave in. And he bowed as tight as it was possible, keeping Draco under his body surrounded by the protective cage of his legs.

With a last crackle Hogwarts fell down on them.

 **It will continue**


	11. Pieces of you, pieces of me

And now…

Welcome to:

 **SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 11 - Pieces of me, pieces of you**

"Mama, my slipper!"

"Rose, don't stop!" Hermione shrieked, and clenched her fingers tightly around her daughter's frozen hand, not caring if the shoe was lost forever, or if Rose had to keep running barefoot.

She kept pushing against the crowd.

Pulling on her little one, protecting her with her body, and knowing that Hugo, her eldest son, was following them closely. Even so, every few steps she looked back, searching for his rumbled red hair.

Her pulse was a frantic torrent, a hysterical cry. Never before had the barriers of Hogwarts been so severely damaged. And now, she understood the mistake of having been cradled by a false sense of security.

The possibility she may lose any of her two children …

She gritted her teeth.

Now the safest option was to get to the room of requirements.

But Hermione and her family were not the only ones trying to find a safe heaven.

Around them, like a swarm of ants, men, women and children, ran around, trying be the first to seek shelter.  
Panic had stripped them of their humanity, leaving only the beasts that we are all in the essence, and who value little, or nothing, more than their survival and that of those who are dear to them.

The crowd sounded like a pack of hungry dogs; Cries and shrieks ... and barely comprehensible insults.

At the rate the tremors were coming, not everyone would have the time to flee.

And the marabunta knew it.

Another new vibration began to rise from the floor, ascending through the partitions of the walls, murmuring in the stone; a hiss like a thousand insects...

A warning in their own bones...

"Another quake!" Someone shouted.

People threw themselves even more violently forward, like a huge wave. No one seemed to mind crushing the others.

Rose shrieked.

A long, sharp moan of childlike terror.

"MAMA!" She also sensed what was coming, even if she was too young to understand.

A man two heads taller than Hermione, hit her violently with his elbow in the ribs, throwing her against a column. Pain exploded on her side, hot and wet, and she was about to collapse.

Rose's small feet, now one of them barefoot, stumbled as they tangled in the edge of her nightgown ... her mother's inert hand slipped out of her small fingers, too young to be able to grasp with the necessary strength.  
Terror made her cry ... People kept pushing her.  
She stumbled.

"MAMA!"

She close her eyes…. and the heat of Hugo's presence made her look again.

"Hugo!"

Her older brother lifted her in his arms, wrapping her with his ungainly body- that of a child halfway to being a man- still in striped pajamas. And he threw himself forward loaded with her, pushing and struggling, to reach their mother, with a rictus on the lips that went beyond fear or anger, to be pure determination.

"Mom!" Hugo called.

Hermione, still dizzy, clenched her teeth, struggling to join her children.

The three of them managed to get together in the midst of the nightmare, when the walls, the floors, the ceiling... shuddered, vibrated, and moaned, like a huge dying dragon. Everything shook violently. The ground cracked, opening gaps in their path. And only the joint effort of mother and son, made the three of them take shelter under the arcade of a door, avoiding by a few steps falling through one of the cracks.

Others were not so fortunate.

Nearby, the man who had hit Hermione slipped when another man trying to save himself, grabbed his leg desperately, and fell, dragging him along.

Mione reached out, trying to help... but her fingers brushed against the frayed edge of a coat, before they disappeared downstairs.

"Let's go!" Cried Hugo.

Hermione looked away from the crack with difficulty.

Around them, Hogwarts seemed to be collapsing. Trying to move forward would be crazy, but if they stayed they were dead.

Then she saw it.

A window.  
It was not much, a burlap barely wide enough for an adult to fit. But even if they managed to get out, the Death Eaters could still be outside, waiting.

Hermione looked around one last time.

"Come!"

They ran among the crown. Thanks to Merlin the window was not far from them.

By the time they reached it, stone had begun to break from the ceiling, a shower that barely missed them, pressed as they were against the wall by the window.

Hermione tasted rock dust on her tongue, the salty taste of sweat, the bitter aftertaste of fear from dozens of people.

The sound of crying and the screams of so many together were unbearable, a howl that seemed to have no end.

"Bombarda!" Cried Hermione, the wand in her numb hand. And the window pane exploded out.

The ground around them began to collapse.

"You first Hugo." She called.  
Their gaze met for a second, and Hermione saw that her son wanted to protest. Perhaps, offer himself, to stay behind while his sister and mother escaped. But he must have seen something in his mother's eyes, and he kept his words.

His teenage body, tall, ungainly, and yet strong, in ways that someone so young should not yet be, easily slipped through the opening.  
They were on a second floor, and the fall might have been dangerous, however there was a sill on which to lean. And that Hugo used to sit, and look inward.

"Take Rose." Hermione lifted her little daughter in her arms, to pass her through the window, into the outstretched arms of her older brother.

"No, Mama, no," pleaded the baby girl clutching her nightgown.

Rose looked at her with wide, frightened eyes, her messy carrot-colored curls, scattered around her face, like a pile of woolen strips, and the little body, wrapped in a discolored old nightgown, trembling.

She looked as fragile as a kite in the storm.

Hermione tenderly pulled back the curls of her face. Struggling to offer her a reassuring smile, even though everything around them was coming down, and the terrible fear she also felt.

"Fear not, sweetie. Hugo will take care of you." Rose's hands slackened a bit, and Hermione lifted her carefully, passing her to Hugo.

"Now you, Mom," his eldest son called. But she denied softly.

"No, someone has to bring you down."

"MOM! WHAT DO YOU DO?! NO!" The boy had wanted to grab her, but he already had Rose in his arms, and he could not risk losing an arm from the embrace.

"Hugo ..." Hermione's voice sweetened terribly, almost breaking. And her hand rested on his son's arm, inadvertently, through the window. "Please, Hugo ..." She gazed down at her younger child, cradled between them, "look at your sister."  
Hugo lowered his pupils a moment, to the huge hazel irises.

"... Hugo ... I'm scared." Her voice was as small and sharp as a bird's. Rose was crying.

"Take care of her." Muttered Mione.  
The redhead seemed to shrink in himself, and collapsed into his mother's words.

"No ..." He whispered, his cheeks moist with tears that he did not know he was pouring.

Hugo, in his blue-and-white striped pajamas, wrinkled and dirty, his feet wrapped in furry slippers. With his messy reddish hair, and the freckles that splashed his face, and that had not changed since he was just a baby, looked like a child again. But he was not.

He was a very young man, one who had seen too much.  
And Hermione felt a deep pride for this young man, in whom his little one had become.

"I love you. Movilicorpus!"

When only two meters remained to reach the ground, the roof collapsed with a gigantic roar.

 **oOo**

Remus shrieked in the midst of the hurricane of howls, cries, moans, screams, explosions, orders ...

The wall vibrated, shuddered, warped dangerously. On the verge of collapse.

Ron drew out even more of his magic, drawing it from every corner within him where there might still be something to give; The marrow of his bones, the heat of his blood, the tips of his fingers and his feet ... to support the wall for another minute, a few seconds more. Just enough that Remus, and the group of wizards he led, could prop it up. If it fell, the second floor would not hold for long. And after it all the others would fell.

"Damn it!" He shouted, for he could do nothing else, all his attention and power concentrated on the wand and energy beam that embraced the wall, like shoring partitions.

He could feel his body go numb, and the heat leave him. He staggered, managed to hold himself, and groaned at the effort. The stone growled with him, like a huge dying animal.

Remus and his group cast one spell after another, creating a perfect network of magical energy, which merged with the stone and anchored it, like a second skin to harden it. But Ron couldn't give more. Even so, despite the weariness, the helor that was seeping through his pores, the increasingly unreal sensation of the world dissolving in delirium around him, he forced himself to continue holding the spell. And only when his own heartbeat began to fade, finally, he surrendered, and fell to his knees, hopelessly wanting for the wall to no fall.

"Well done Ron!"

"What ...?" He looked up, vision clouded by the icy sweat running down his forehead, and that clung to his temples in thick drops of exhaustion.

The wall was standing. Shored up.

He realized he had Remus' hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the tired lupine, and smiled barely, on the brink of collapse.

"I have done it."

Remus smiled too, definitely fatigued, but still on his feet. His nature allowed him a resistance, that a normal wizard could not hope to have.

"Rest Ronal, you did very well."

"You have seen...-" but Remus was gone again, in the fray of refugees, members of the order, and wounded, who were trying by every mean, to prevent the collapse of the last refuge of light. "- ... Hermione and the children?"

 **oOo**

Sirius screamed, warning the people fleeing through the floo.

Outside the room, the ceiling was collapsing. He turned to look inside, to the people who had not yet had time to escape. An adult wizard pushed the pair of children in line waiting for their turn, and tried to reach the floo before the collapse caught up with them.

Chaos broke out around him. The ground vibrated violently and the little ones squealed.

Sirius entered crowd, violent and terrible. Even in the terror of the moment, those who knew who the brave sorcerer was, stepped out of his way.

He grabbed the man by the collar of his robe, and threw him to the side, slamming him violently against the wall.

A huge fragment of stone collapsed from the ceiling. People howled.

"RUN!" He shouted to the children.

The floo area was collapsing.

He started to run to Dumbledore's office. 

**oOo**

(Harry)

Darkness.

Exhaustion…

The unpleasant, heavy, wet sensation of something pulpy piled against him, beneath him, over him, that would not let him move.

The sound of drops crashing against rock: pic, pic, pic. And the smell-the air that entered his lungs, in cold, pasty puffs, which reeked of corruption, putrid things, the deeply unpleasant stench of decaying flesh, and the toxic, rusty scent of coagulated blood.

Like breathing inside a slaughterhouse.

He groaned.  
Struggling to push the darkness out of his brain. And the burning in his muscles, the discomfort in his gut, slipped from the darkness into the light of his conscious mind. Craning to the marrow of his bones, swimming in the cavity of his brain.

He uttered a grunt of complaint, still not quite alert.

More and more awake, other nuances began to be discernible under the stench of the massacre; The aromatic scent of fear and panic, the musty odor of stale sweat, the acid stench of urine ... the fresh scent of Draco in the midst of putridness.  
Clear rain on the sticky stench.

"Malfoy ..." He blinked, opened his eyes, in a gesture of reflex.

There was nothing to illuminate, but the darkness could not stop him from seeing, his arachnid eyes catching it all ... and what he saw, completely activated his sleeping brain.

Everything around him was a bloody uterus.

Dark sticky liquid, similar to molasses, a substance almost coagulated, slowly slipping through walls made of rubble, chipped wood, broken stone.  
Bathed all the surface of the cavern formed around him.

Debris agglutinated by a brown reddish mass, like rusty motor oil, which was nothing but human remains.

Raw flesh, chipped bones, torn fabric, and the intimate fluids of the inside of the body, united to create a macabre cement.  
Dead bodies that barely seemed human.

Seeing all this short-circuited his brain, and struck the broken puzzle of his memory, like a hammer, until it fit again in a devastating way. And he remembered ... The attack, the avalanche, the desperate drive to protect ... "Malfoy." Sharp images such as mental pictures.

His spider part, conjured the protective instinct to bite with sharp fangs his nape, and remind him of what contained his legs closed with the force of a cage.

"My partner." Whispered the widow.

"A Death Eater, a spy, a murderer, a manipulator ..." remembered the human part. "Two things certain." The guardian whispered. But at this moment the need to know if Malfoy was all right, relegated the three strands to the background.

Carefully, he untangled his legs, to reveal an unconscious Draco Malfoy, hidden under the shelter of his body.

The sticky blood that soaked everything, had slipped between his legs, and fallen on him; Bathing his skin in red and black, seeping into the strands of his hair, cradling in the hollows of his flesh.

Slipping along the edge of his parted lips, as if to alleviate a thirst still asleep. And hung in delicate drops like carmine dew, on his eyelashes. There was so much blood that it was impossible to tell if part of it was his.

Harry swallowed, watching ...

The chest rose and fell. Malfoy's breathing deep and rhythmic, with no hiss or gesture on his face (red, serene mask) that could indicate pain.

The green pupils scanned the figure from head to toe, looking for any small anomaly that pointed to the presence of a wound... The damp cloth adhered to his body like a second bloody skin. Outlining every hollow and sharp angle, every shape, small detail, of the physical shell, of that frozen mind.

He averted his gaze, suddenly aware of desire coiling like igneous tongues in his gut. Harry caught the sharp hunger, and brushed it aside.

Now was not the time, nor the place for the instinctive reflection of his spider.

The next few minutes passed, little by little, seeing if the rubble could stand alone, without the support of the mass of his widow body.

Once confident, he let his body move to the hybrid form that was his natural shell. The change, always so smooth, slid over his body with the ease he expected ... but something was not right. Something ... when his new form settled, his legs failed him and he dropped to his knees by Malfoy's unconscious body.

"Something is not right." He felt weak, too weak.

He shrugged his shoulders, gently, trying to adapt himself to the curves and joints of this shape, and the pain, briefly asleep until then, perhaps from shock, awoke and fluttered down his spine, vertebra to vertebra, until his whole back burned, inside out, in an electric spark.

With a choked groan, Harry collapsed on palms and knees, shivering and shuddering. The reflex of holding himself, tightened the muscles of his body from his legs to his arms, and the suffering multiplied until an inarticulate scream was torn from him. Forcing the hybrid to lean his forehead against the bloody stone.

His arms trembled violently, barely supporting his weight.

By the time the pain had subsided enough to allow him to think, sweat beaded the surface already covered with blood, of his chitin, and his body shivered violently.

Getting to sit was exhausting. The agonized work of several minutes, concentration and suffering, which left him feeling fragile as eggshell. He barely managed to look over his shoulder at the area that seemed to be the most painful ...  
Oxygen stopped in his windpipe.

Broken.

The chitin that covered his spine ... was a crushed mass, broken inward, of pieces like blades of black glass, stuck in the crushed flesh. Blood and other greenish-yellow fluids suppurated between them on what was left of his back. Slipping through strands of tissue, and splinters of bone, repugnantly.

His armor was hard, but apparently not so much as to safeguard it from the impact of several tons of stone.

He looked away, his stomach twisting. And he thought, vaguely, in the hysteria scaling his epidermis, if he had not swallowed some slugs ... He shook his head, dispelling the strange, almost delirious, idea. Recognizing it for what it was.

A symptom.

'I have a fever.' Soft fatigue, dizziness, weakness, and now the onset of delirium ... He closed his eyes. 'I've been unconscious for too long.' Long enough for the wounds to become infected in that septic environment.

He needed healing.

Harry opened his eyes again, trying to conjure up his magic. But he was too weak, and drunk with pain to concentrate.

He was getting dizzy.

He collapsed on his side, without strength.

Needing help.

 **oOo**

Draco awoke with the sensation of his lungs dry as gravel, his body aching, his flesh bruised, wet and sticky.

Instinctively he tried to sit up, but his limbs, soft, slipped in the viscous substance that covered the floor, forcing him to lie down. It felt like he'd had too much coffee, and then, to counteract, he'd swallowed a couple of sleep potions.

It was not a pleasant feeling.

For a moment he could not breathe. The awareness of other sensations, unfolding little by little in his brain; Something dripping, sticky moisture on his skin, the. awareness of something on his chest, and the smell ...

His nose involuntarily frowned, his stomach made a strange twist...

"Ugh ..." The stench was terrible. Stifling, putrid, and yet ... not entirely unpleasant.

He blinked, his eyelashes stuck with something sticky.

"What ..." He lifted his pupils slowly ... and what he saw ... blood ... everywhere ... entrails, and stone, and red, red impregnating everything ... .the ground were bodies piled one on top of another, and between crumbled rock... pieces of meat ... he recognized a face. Did not know his name, but it was the gaze, now empty, of a man he had seen in the corridors not even a week ago ... and Draco felt ... HUNGER ...

Realization and horror hit him like a train.

His stomach shrank violently, all his muscles screamed, and he had to force himself to roll over to vomit on the rock, and not drown in his own sputum. Bilis and other debris, forced out by disgust and horror, which he could feel tearing through his cerebellum.

Burning his stomach on the way out.

The last remains slid down his chin, and fell to the floor between his arms, joining the pool of vomit. The sudden emptiness of his stomach increased his discomfort, and his appetite was sharpened like a knife. He gasped, and the odor flooded his nostrils.

He closed his eyes with all his might to ward off the temptation.

"No no no." Draco muttered to himself. Repeating the word as an exhortation. He groaned chokedly. Only a monster could feel something like that.

He could not think, he could not react ...

A hand rested shakily on his, and the feeling, suddenly so real, was like an anaphylactic shock.

For Harry it was a reflex, a desperate, almost unconscious, effort to survive, which made him try to get Malfoy's attention.

Draco caught air suddenly aware of the other. Grateful to have something to hold onto, out of his skull. Suddenly able to breathe again.

His pupils turned cautiously toward the owner of the trembling fingers.

"Raksa?"

Raksa's body, usually black and gleaming like the shell of a beetle, or the sparkling, polished facets of an obsidian, was only a step away from him, collapsed on its side ... its shine shattered ... its back ...

Open, broken in pieces, as if something had crushed the chitin and the meat underneath with the sadism of a madman. A festering wound of clotted blood, yellow and green liquids, dripping on the stony floor. Forming an ever larger pool.

Draco did not need to be told, what they were those green and yellow substances. Because the arachnid part, more and more awake of itself, already knew.

They were the fluids inside the black widow. Liquids that were much deeper inside the flesh under his skin, than the usual red blood. The drinks that ran through his most delicate organs, those under his thickest armor, and that were his real vital sage.

The realization left him paralyzed.

It was like hawthorn-shaped ice, sticking to his ankles to rise through his legs, until it reached the inside of his chest. A protective desire, which he barely recognized as his own, rising in the scratched hollow behind his ribs, like a strange demon.

He closed the half-meter that separated them, without even remembering how.

"Raksa" the hissing in which the name came out in, had little of human. But Draco did not notice. And in fact, even if he had, it wouldn't have meant anything in his condition. "What has happened?"

Neither of them was aware of the way the gray irises had expanded in their basins, until they almost swallowed the white of the eyeball.

Harry gasped, drowning in blood, all that came from his lips. The pain was all his world now ... He couldn't stop shivering. Why couldn't he stop shivering?

Draco narrowed his eyes, remembering what had happened. The spy, the tremors, the attack...

'He's protected me.' It was not a question. Inside the moth-eaten box of his brain, the moment Raksa closed around him like a huge black cage, shielding him from everything, had lit up like a fluorescent in the dark.

Draco stretched out his, increasingly white, fingers to pose them with immense delicacy on the shredded edge of Raksa's shoulder.

Harry moaned. For a moment his vision blackened to nothing. Too much contact for his already battered body. Draco removed his fingers instantly.

"Raksa ..." he hissed quietly. The black widow was dying. He saw it in the gray hue of his dark skin, and in the shadows under his eyelids. If he could no longer look into his eyes. Into those immense green eyes, like poison vapor.

If he was expelled from the shelter of Raksa's arms, he loosed the terrible witchcraft of his lips. If he was cast by death, out of the strange magic of their encounter... and lost that still growing between them...  
If all that happened, he would never feel whole again.

He sighed wetly, savoring his own unshed tears. Draco didn't know where those ideas came from. Why they sounded so true and terrible. All the horrible things the black widow had done to him seemed so far away now. As memories of another person. In his wake remained the solid impression of his embrace, the languid warmth of his poison in his veins, the strength of his possessiveness ... all the times he had saved his life ... everything he had given for him.  
"Raksa ... Raksa ..." he called. Harry looked up at the sound of his voice, too feverish, to understand that he was speaking to him in a language, no longer human. "How can I heal you? The spells I know will not work in you."

Draco's words took a moment to make sense. And when they did, Harry felt like a rat trapped against a wall. Because in this shape, Malfoy was right, no spell would work. In order for magic to touch him, he would have to give up completely the protecting of his arachnid, adopting his human form... reviving Harry Potter.

The thought made him shiver even harder.

Allowing someone to know that he was alive, to open the door of that past again, would be to have to face things that he had believed buried. To be entangled, again, in the web of a war that did not matter to him. In which one side wanted him docile and obedient like a mannequin, and the other wanted him dead.

The very idea made him gag.

"RAKSA!" He felt a warm palm on his cheek. The seizures robbed him of his few remaining forces. He felt fine like butter smeared on too much bread. The reality was escaping him. "Keep breathing!"

Harry gasped.

It was hard to think.

Above him, Malfoy filled all his vision; A huge pale patch, like an immense moon. His mind was spinning, his brain felt like soda inside a can, effervescent and furious to find a way out. His heartbeat was a vinyl inside a crazy record player, humming again and again the same melody; Tu-tum, tu-tum.

'I'm delirious.' He thought almost amused. But the fear in his viscera was very real. 'Why am I so afraid?' It was hard to concentrate enough, to catch thoughts, that a second ago, were so clear.

'Fear ... Harry ... Potter.' He took the idea and turned it, this way, and that way, trying to understand it, until it became discernible. 'So that was it, that's why I was afraid. I don't want to be Harry again.' No, he did not want to. Why he did not? Malfoy was shouting something, he could not understand.

"RAKSA, TELL ME HOW CAN I HELP!"

A, he remembered. If he did not change into his human form, he would die. But he did not want to change. He closed his eyes, for to see Malfoy so fuzzy was beginning to make him dizzy. Something, another part of himself, was also shouting at him. He frowned.

'What? What is it?' The other Harry pushed and shouted, and other images bloomed in his mind: A forest, spiders, a giant tree, wolves, vampires, centaurs, unicorns, elves ... 'The forest.' If he did not survive, who would protect the forest?

He swallowed. He didn't want to be Harry again, but he wanted even less to let so many beings who had trusted in him, and accepted him when no one else had, die.

For a moment, Raksa was so still, that during a nebulous second of growing horror, Draco thought he had died.

"Rak ... sa? …" he muttered. The words slipped between his violently red lips. Snow-white fingers, settling on a black cheek. "RAKSA?"

Suddenly, a convulsion shook Raksa's body, twisting it like a worm about to die.  
"RAKSA!" Draco hissed, frightened, holding him by the shoulders. A gasp drowned in agony, leapt torturously, between lips covered with venom and blood, and the change began slowly and horrifyingly.

The process always so fluid, this time was like seeing a crust open, to let out the pus. The body convulsed and twisted, and Draco feared more than once that each agonizing gasps would be the last.

The bones gave off a horribly unpleasant crunch, the muscles and cartilage re-shaped, little by little. The body decreased in height by a few inches, and the chitin opened like thousands of insect shells, which were slowly and tortuously collected inside the skin until they disappeared completely. The black tint of the epidermis washed out, until it became a pale but human tone. The spider fangs twisted and creaked, dwarfed and grew a white crust, to become human teeth. The claws turned into nails. The limbs shrank a little, to the perfect proportions of a human. The eye sockets crunched and replaced, and the nose came up like a fungus on the face, until it formed completely.

Hair was the only thing that did not change. Long to the shoulders, black and deranged in tips and bangs, looking more bitten than cut.

In the end, what remained on the floor was a tall, athletic and dark man. Soaked in blood and fluids, whose back looked like the work of a deranged butcher. Broken bones, and parts of the spine, poking through flesh.

Draco had never looked for a wand so fast, nor with such terror.

"Come on, come on, come on …"

Despite losing his wand days ago, when he fled from Malfoy Manor, he soon found another among the corpses surrounding them.

He began reciting how many healing spells he knew.

 **To be continue**


	12. Hates

And now…

Welcome to: ****

 **SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 12 - Hates**

In the end the world was reduced to a bloody cave of stone, a dying man (if he could be called so), and spells mumbled until turning unintelligible.

Each second hanging from the edge of the next beat, the next inspiration.

Draco offered every healing spell he could remember, and some he only intuited could help. Until he had no more magic to give.

Exhausted, the wand slipped from his numb fingers. His breathing had grown slow, trapped between his lips and his lungs like stagnant water. His heartbeats, heavy, had the cadence of tired steps.

He sank down against the rock, leaning his back on something wet that he would not look at, his legs spread out on the ground before him.

At his side, the other was still unconscious, but at least he no longer trembled with pain. Draco had done everything he could, now, if he lived or died it was not in his hands. However, he could still make him a little more comfortable, at least.

With his last energies, the blond raised Raksa's inert face, and rested his round skull, soaked in blood and grime, on his lap. His trembling fingers tangled in the sticky locks (marble-white between black hair dyed reddish-brown), without strength.

Under his fingertips and claws, which he did not know had bloomed instead of his nails, he could feel the heat of the other. His warm skin in his lap, the life still running in the battered casing.

There was a sound on the edge of his perception, something more than their mingled breaths and the plick-plock of red drops sliding to the ground; An almost hushed, hoarse, and worn, murmur.

Draco realized that the voice was his, and that he was intoning words he did not remember.

"Don't die, don't leave me now, don't leave me, Raksa. Don't you dare leave me, you miserable bastard!" The murmur turned into an inarticulate, choked cry, that made his throat ache and his eyes fill with tears.  
He was shaking.

"If you abandon me, I will never forgive you," he muttered, voice dry and cracked. "Don't you dare leave me alone." his hand moved a little, trembling convulsively, to caress the head.

His white palms bathed in crystalline chitin, between dark hair.

Inside, something achingly intense, had made its way through the joints of his bones, unstitching the person who was Draco. Bringing something intimate and strange to the surface; A throbbing flame that did not hurt, a low moan like a cicada's. A strange need, an organic reaction similar to breathing, to the magic that had always been in his veins, like the throb of his heart.

Draco was no longer Draco, he was something else.

And when this new thing, still shaken, looked at Raksa, whose face was a mask of dust, sweat, and clotted blood... a terrible, hungry feeling, trimmed with claws and teeth, unfolded across every fiber of his body.

This not-Draco creature, leaned over Raksa, scenting the smell of his skin; Vitae, sweat, and the intimate, intimate spice, that marked him as one of them.

Through the slit of his half-open eyes, Raksa's face, so close, looked like a huge, reddish stain, like a watercolor flower.

"Stay with me." The whisper was an almost inaudible sigh, on the battered skin. It was breathed by the other, sneaking through the holes of his nose, to reach inside his body.

What was no longer Draco, felt a deep satisfaction in being aware of this; Because ... Raksa was his, His, HIS.

The idea unfolded in his skull, insidious, sinking tiny and sharp nails into his cerebellum.

Gently, the new being buried his nose in the sweaty temple of the other, sucking its scent. Feeling the touch of dirty and hard hair. His lips traced the curve of a cheek, a chin, a mouth... lips against lips, soft and warm.

He blinked, breathing deliciously in the other's breath.

Raksa's face was an unrecognizable mask, under the crust of filth. And the creature wished to clean it, to be able to look underneath, to know his human form, as already knew the spider and the hybrid.

To know who he was.  
The idea blossomed delicately, as a carnivorous plant opens in its appetite.

Impossible to ignore, it mixed with the oxygen in his lungs and made itself be breathed through his body.

Here he had no water, no clean rags, and though he could have conjured them, the possibility never crossed his mind.  
He had far more pleasant ways to do it.

No-Draco gently licked a strip of skin, savoring the mixture of human blood, male sweat and burning ash.

His tongue traced the other's face. Delicate licks alternated with kisses, with whispers. Until the face was completely clean. The skin no longer so pale, visible to his scrutinizing gaze.

He lay still, cheek against cheek, the smell of the other on his lips, his nose... so close to being able to meet the human within Raksa ... savoring the moment before the revelation, as the pleasure before a kiss. Almost more delicious than the encounter of tongues and lips. He raised a finger, still slightly trembling, to trace the jaw, the patrician nose, the lips...

"You're so familiar to me..."

The dark lashes twitched. He barely moved from the other, his breathing contained. Raksa's eyelids trembled... and his eyes opened.

Greens and intense, for a moment, the pupils were the soft, sweet green of the grass in summer, only a little disoriented, but a second later, every shadow of sleep evaporated, and with them any trace of softness.  
The pupils became faceted stones of rust green, the look of a predator watching him from a human body...

His tangled hair slightly parted from his forehead... a thunder scar between the disordered locks, suddenly impossible to ignore.

Draco felt his breath catch, his world bend, his heart stopped.

"... Potter?" The whisper, incredulous, delicate, broke between his teeth. Almost without sound. But so close, Harry could not help but catch it.

"Malfoy," he whispered back. And now he made the effort to get up, away from him.

The sudden distance was a deeper wound yet, and the thing, non-Draco, shrank in pain and returned to the depths of the human, leaving only Draco with his pain, anger and rage.

(Harry)

Opening his eyes, and seeing Malfoy leaning over him, he realized that what he was gazing at, was his hybrid form; Immense gray eyes with no pupil or trace of the witness of the eyeball, spider fangs between pure white lips, touched with crystalline chitin. He had not known how to react. His heartbeat had accelerated...

But a second later, his name had come out between those lips, and he knew he had to put a safe distance between them.  
He did not want to be on the ground for what he knew to be coming.

(Draco)

The pain was terrible.

" ... You ... " There were no words to give it shape, no way to appease it. His vocal cords seemed to have become entangled with barbed wire, and every sound was an agonizing effort.

Anger, black and dreadful, burned his insides.

His body, desperately weak, almost failed to rise, but the pain gave him the strength to get up.

He was shaking uncontrollably.

"... How could you?" The words came out strangled, shattered. And when he just received an absent look in response, he could no longer remain sane. "Son of a bitch!"

He threw himself at Potter, but he was already waiting for him, and the claws that would otherwise have been embedded in his throat were stopped when Potter's hand snapped closed on his pale wrist.

The gesture did not stop Draco, and he attacked with the other claw, fast as a snake. This time Harry received a deep scratch in his side, before being able to hold him back. The pain only served to ignite his own anger.

"Enough!" He roared.

"FUCK YOU!" Draco threw back.

Entangled in a knot of taut limbs, face to face, Draco could barely breathe, but there was enough fire in his gaze to scorch Harry, who was unable to hold it.

Visceral guilt and hatred tangled in Harry's guts, disrupting him. 'Malfoy didn't know a thing about what had happened. He had no right to talk about what he did not understand. Nor to demand explanations.'

Without really realizing it, he had pressed his pale wrists bones painfully against one another.

Suddenly, Draco burst into a broken laugh, like metal against stone. Cold and disgusting, it turned into a rictus of visceral hatred.

"All this time ... and it was you. YOU LEFT WHEN YOU WERE MOST NEEDED. YOU LET THEM BELIEVE THAT YOU WERE DEAD! **YOU!** LET ME GO!"

He may have been weak, trapped, but mad anger is a powerful source of energy. And even with his hands still trapped, Draco still had fangs.

With a fast movement that Harry did not anticipate, Malfoy locked his jaw in the gap between his neck and shoulder. If Harry had not moved instinctively, the bite would have caught his throat.

The poison of a submissive is a strand different from that of a dominant, and instead of making him languid and calm, the drink raised his most primary instincts. And in this situation, it was anger.

Harry roared, finally furious; Anger by the words of that Death Eater who knew nothing, anger by the bite, by the slash. Burning anger calcining his bloodstream.

He grabbed Draco by the hair, pulling him away from his neck by force, crushing him against the stone, pressing his face against the bloody wall, and trapping his arms behind his back with one hand, in a wild maneuver, too abrupt for Draco, weak and miserably tired, to avoid it.

"Don't talk about what you don't understand, Malfoy," he whispered in his ear as his own skin grew rapidly black, dark chitin blooming like insects on the epidermis. "You know nothing about me."

"Do I not?" Draco hissed against the stone, resisting despite being able to smell the other's fury. "Nothing can justify what you did, what you have done to me." Words that dripped poison.

The guilt became more intense in Harry, mixed with anger, with the pain still half forgotten of the last hours, his fury.

A sulfuric acid cocktail.

Horrible, painful, unbearable.

He had to shut him up.

Black fangs pierced white skin.

 **To be continue**

 **Note:** There it goes a new chapter. It's taken so dam long... My exams are taking their tool. I don't know if I will be able to post on time this December, but I will try.

On the other hand, I bring you a little spoon of drama. Things are getting interesting and kind of difficult. Don't know how this is going to turn...


	13. The Guardian

**Notes:** Hi again.  
Sorry for the delay.

And now ...

Welcome to:

 **SPIDERWEB**

 **13- The Guardian**

Draco felt the bony protuberances enter his skin, and lodge in his throat, familiar and unpleasant as the bite of an insect, or the shards of a bone.

The pain of the entrance was like the bass of a melody, present, but buried under other more strident instruments; burning anger, the sound of his own breathing turned into a rasping gasp, trapped between the ducts of his trachea …

Anticipation spilled hot in the pit of his stomach, while he twisted uselessly, against the body that kept him immobilized.

He expected pain, agony. Something red and intense, but it was an instinctive waiting. He did not think about what Potter could do to him, there were no coherent thoughts in the histrionic cacophony of his brain; just boiling rage, stifling hatred, and a muffled agony, that had taken possession of his neurons.

The mixture slid from his synapses to his mouth, where it turned into bile. Unpleasant and disgustingly bitter, while the first injection of venom, (caramel and cyanide in his arteries) loosened the cords of his muscles; Hot, warmer than the blood within his body.

A honey thread searing and tangling inside his skull, like a bandage on an open wound, containing and appeasing the cutting splinters of his feelings.

Draco was still furious, filled with hatred and pain, but they were no longer so terrible as to stop him from thinking.

His brain sharpened like the rusty razor of an old knife, sharpened by blood and time, bringing to light a twisted curiosity, a defiant strangeness, that could not reconcile the young Gryffindor from his memories, with the monster at his back.

His desire to hurt Potter was a visceral need, a disheartened shout in his veins. And it wasn't going to disappear, because he could not do so with claws and teeth.

He still knew how to hurt with words, and cut with murmurs.

And he wanted to know.  
He needed to know, how could Potter justify what he had done.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

The desire was a surprise, a carmine filament that tangled in his gut, the same instant his fangs penetrated the white skin.  
The morbid taste of blood, sliding down his throat, to pour into his reddish, tender entrails, and mingle with the venom's spicy and exquisite embrace.

The resultant potion of both substances burned on the inside, soft and obsessive, sticky and maddening, like an old flower liqueur.

Poison and blood ...

Swallowing guilt and resentment.  
Harry felt relieved. He did not want to think, he did not want to contemplate the past, he refused to remember.

He could not help but feel the coagulated blood on his skin, firmly pressed against his. Feel its warmth. Absorb its perfume.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

He tossed his head back, gently, gracefully, languidly, allowing his skull to lodge on the other's shoulder, just because he needed to push his lips away from the stone, enough to be able to speak.

Potter's breath had turned into a gasp on his skin, and the hand he was not grasping his wrists with, had tangled around his waist, searching for his skin beneath his robe and shirt.

Potter's hair brushed his cheek like delicate insect legs. A shiver ran down his spine, making him nauseous, drying his mouth.

Absently, he licked his lips, and the taste of Raksa / Potter flooded his tongue, still caught in the crevices of his parched lips corners. Hating him even more deeply ... and longing for him.

A sensation like a mad rhapsody, which suddenly lit up in his veins, with the taste of the other, and the murmur of the venom.

Draco threw his hips back, instinctively, brazenly, involuntarily, disgusted with himself, and with that part of him, now hidden in his gut, still wanting the contact. Twisting against that thing, no-Draco that was melting in a purr of pleasure, as he brushed the other's pelvis with the curve of his buttocks, like a bitch in heat.

Potter was erect, hard and firm against him.  
Realizing it was like a bucket of cold water, disgust stirred in his guts.

He barely twisted in Potter's grasp, with his few remaining energies, reveling against the animal craving, feeling Potter gasp against his neck, his fangs flexing in his flesh. The movement caused the black widow to press against him more firmly. Adapting the planes of their bodies.

His erection slid between Draco's half-open legs, in a unpleasantly intimate contact, through his pants soaked in blood and fluids.

And Draco could not contain a desperate shiver of repugnance, and perverse pleasure, which he refused to even contemplate. Instead, he clung to the rage and anger he felt, like a slash that could not be ignored, which needed to spill out his lips and through his throat.

"Potter," she whispered. Just a gasp, a stifled sound in the sticky soft warmth of the toxin. "The chosen one," he muttered. The sound cracked delicately between his teeth. "The child who survived," he panted. -"The Savior of the Magical World…"

Potter choked on his blood at those names, coughing against his throat what he had swallowed.

The tranquility that the desire had brought him, breaking like glass.

For ten years no one had called him those things, and the pain of that time, buried but not healed, the memories he had tried to forget, threatened to awaken, with an agonizing, terrible snarl, like that of a gutted animal, dying abandoned in the asphalt.

Harry could not stand it.

Draco felt the sound in his skin like a furious vibration, which made the bite loosen. Harry released the abused bloody flesh from between his jaws, without injecting more of the toxic load.

"Shut up," Potter mumbled, his voice rough from coughing, a deceptively soft murmur that reeked of iron. Anger barely contained, frustration, and strange, stiff, pain.

As his fingers closed in his blond hair (carmine and sticky), they tensed and pulled, forcing Draco to arch against him, if he did not want to feel his neck break.

The spy let himself be manhandled, with the indolent self-assurance that often pricked the nerves of those who were trying to bring him down.

He was furious, furious as he had never been. But the poison turned his body into relaxed curves.

He laughed soft, cold and cruel.

"Does it hurt you the remind of who you were? To recognize the monster you've become?"

Harry gritted his teeth, Malfoy was playing keys that should never have sounded again ...

 **oOo**

The guardian was quieter than the spider and the human, his priorities clearer, and his anger milder, preferring to observe and give advice. But what he could see coming in the furious troubled mind of the human could not be allowed. Harry was not in his right mind.

'If you hurt him we can lose him.'

The human ignored his words.

Draco moaned in pain before he managed to contain the sound, as Potter's hand tightened around his wrists, pressing the fine bones, until they creaked like delicate paper.

"Shut up Malfoy, I'm starting to get very tired of listening to you." Hate-like syllables. Fingers like iron tongs, growing thinner.

'Enough is enough, Harry.' called the Guardian.

'Do not mess with me Raksa.' Harry replied in a violent growl that did not attend to reasons. He had to shut Malfoy up!

Draco gasped in pain.

"You say that you're tired?" -Ruel broken fun.

The pressure became greater.

If he continued his wrists would break like fine dry wood. Draco knew it, as he knew what he was courting with his defiant tone, but he did not care. Everything hurt and burned inside.

Outside, inside ... What did it matter a little more pain?

"Tired of what, Potter? Of running away? Of murdering? Of betraying those who loved you? Do you know how Siriu ... " Perhaps he should not have uttered that name. "AAAAAAHHHH!" The delicate bones split with a horrifying creak, and the poison that had softened his muscles, and sensitized his skin, magnified the agony until it became unbearable.

Harry smiled with satisfaction.

Raksa had already seen more than enough.

His anger could be softer than the spider's and the human's, but when it reached a critical point, it was more dangerous than both. And he was upset, very upset ... with his own human side.

He grabbed Harry and crushed him against the back wall of the inside of his skull, so hard that the impact resonated like a migraine in his brain.

A tacit warning.

To remove the spider was easier, because the widow was not happy with the unnecessary pain to his pregnant mate.

He took total control of the body, as he had not in years. The sensations, long discarded, of the flesh, made him hypersensitive to every detail of information offered by the body; Draco in his arms, warm and trembling. The dried blood on his flesh, sticky and unpleasant. The discomfort of his body still sensitive after healing, the odour in his lungs; The smell of dead flesh, clotted blood, and other things he decided to ignore. The taste of the vitae of his submissive still on his tongue. The fine pain of the scratch on his side.

"Malfoy," he whispered against his ear, making a conscious effort to calm the erection he could feel pressing against the curves of the other body, a result of the spider's desire.

Draco kept trembling, struggling to control the agony. But he could barely catch air in the frightful sensation of his broken bones, and he knew he had begun to sob.

The poison, the tension, the change, the pain ... too much, too much in such a short time for a creature that a few days ago did not even know he was not human.  
He was going into shock.

Raksa dropped the grab on Draco's arms, and sheltered him against his chest carefully, before sitting on the bloodied floor with the slytherin in his lap.

"Malfoy," he repeated softly, trying to catch his attention.

But Malfoy did not listen, trying to break away from him, resisting in spite of everything, but he had no strength left. Not with the poison softening his muscles, and suffering breaking his chest.

His sobs had the sound of a broken gear trying to run without the missing pieces. A painful and desperate effort.

Raksa thought it was a sound he would never had wanted to listen to.

"Calm down. Sssshh" He hesitated, not sure Malfoy could hear him. Knowing that nothing he said would help.

He reached for his arms to see the state his wrists were in. He had to treat the break before it would heal on its own.

A widow's metabolism is terribly fast, and soon, if the bones were not put in place, they might not be properly aligned when welding. With the result of an improperly fitting joint, that would have to be re-broken to be properly healed. A lesson he had learned painfully enough.

The slytherin shivered at the touch, unpleasantly, like a wounded animal. Luckily Raksa knew how to treat a wounded creature.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated softly. Kind words that tried to be soothing. Movements careful, and calm, so that the other saw him come without surprises.

Laughter caught him completely off guard. A breathless gasp of laughter at Draco's red lips, a sound of steel and sharp crystals, mingled with tears. His body kept shuddering.

"F ... forgive me, ... if I do not believe you, Harry, "he muttered acidly in a broken voice, between choked breaths.

The Guardian watched the shivering skin, the tears wiping away the dried blood on the sunken cheeks, the fatigue, the strange smile.

'Hysteria, or shock. Surely both.' Nothing good. He had to calm him, or this could escalate into a panic attack.

"You have your reasons to not put any credulity in my words." - Seriousness and calm.

He grabbed his right arm with clean, technical movements to study it. The epidermis around the wrist was beginning to show the first signs of bruising, yellow and purple on white skin. He palpated the area carefully, the small bones of the joint clearly splintered.

Draco hissed in incoherent pain.

"DO NOT…!"

"Thank you." Potter's whisper made the irascible wheel of hate and agony inside Draco take a momentary leap.

"What ...?" he panted weakly.

"I did not thank you for saving my life. I would have died without your help."

He looked up ... his green eyes no longer had that quality of the colored glass, hard and toxic, which always made Draco think of hatred and violence. Now they showed the softer, more fluid hue of swamp water. A vegetable and mysterious green. Not less dangerous ... but different. A green that drew you inside, to its muddy bottom, instead of locking you outside behind the crystals of the pupils.

Draco blinked, confused, horribly sore, shivering. Of all the things he'd hoped for, a thank-you was not one of them. Another part of itself, darker and primal, seemed to calm down a little with the words. What seemed to Draco to make no sense, and yet the sensation was there, finally letting him breathe. Tender, in the midst of all that was ripping him inside.

" ... a little late for that. Don't you think?" Draco hissed, finally able to take air with with to give voice to his words.

Strangely, it was not a sound of visceral hate, but of tired pain. He no longer had the strength to continue with that ... the shock began to take its price ... his breathing was beginning to calm down, becoming heavy ... shivering more and more ... he could not move ... suddenly he was so cold...

One of the other's hands settled on his head, and slid through his hair in a kind caress, which for a moment made him feel better.

"What…?" he looked up at him. Not understanding anything.

Draco didn't know what was happening, why Potter had suddenly changed to this calm personality that was nothing like what he had seen him do so far.  
Maybe the old Gryffindor was sick on the head, maybe living like a creature in the forest had broken something intrinsic in his brain. Or maybe it was something of his kind, he did not feel sane either.

'I'm not even human.'

He shrugged unconsciously, looking for some warmth. The caresses in his hair were comforting.

"I admit that my human self has not been very sympathetic." Raksa said with gentle command. Harry shouted something from the place where he had been locked in, but the Guardian shut him up.

"Your human self?" Draco blinked, briefly ... so tired. The direction of the conversation was beginning to show signs of disturbing madness.

The guardian leaned over him, his lips on his white throat, and he whimpered, panicking at the edge of his broken mind. He wanted no more venom in his blood.

He could not stand it.

"No ..." Draco mumbled, not really resisting. He felt weak and soft like a rag doll.

"Shhh," the other man quieted. "Yes. The human part of me. The Harry you probably remember." The words brushed his neck, and the breath tickled his skin. Draco raised a hand, not knowing how, and propped it tremulously on Potter's shoulder with the intention of pushing him away, but once there, the appendage ran out of energy to push.

"What are you talking about?" He whispered quietly. Something ... something inside him, was finding the contact deeply pleasant and soothing.

The gryffindor began to lick the strip of skin just below his jaw thoroughly, the spot where the skull found the neck. Nibbling and kissing, as he spoke.

"Widows like us, who are spiders and humans, are so in every way. A spider part, a human part, in my case, another part that belongs to the forest. Because his spirit is my responsibility." The contact intensified to a smooth, constant, strangely tender and careful rhythm, which was undoing the suffering, the anxiety ... very slowly.

Why? Why was he feeling this way? Draco tried to understand ... when he sensed it.

Oh, oh ... Draco recognized the presence of the other, the creature within himself that had not so long ago been intertwined with him. There, right at the edge of his conscience, purring and relaxed, in the caress of the tongue and the lips of the other.

The spider.

His spider.

His other self.

The spider recognized his presence and pulled him inside in a strange moment of madness. Draco sank into that other primary part, like being swallowed slowly by quick, hot, suffocating, quicksand. Feeling what he was. His calm, his satisfaction, the need to have the other, to be desired, protected, loved.

Experiencing the spider for the first time consciously.

Perceptions and sensations alien to him ... and yet, familiar like his own skin. They swelled within him and grew to be uncontainable.

Draco whined, and if he had had the strength to, he would have embraced Potter to seek his refuge.

"Do you understand now?" The guardian released his throat, that spot that was the most sensitive area of a widow, to be able to look into his eyes.

"... " Draco needed a minute to recover something like sanity, to unravel from the spider and become rational again. The experience left him disoriented and euphoric. "What ...? What was it…?"

Raksa smiled.

"That was the spider. You'r spider."

Draco blinked ... understanding, for the first time, what was happening. What it meant to be a widow. What he was seeing.

"Who are you?" He whispered weakly. 'Who are you? Why I have not seen you before? Why have not been you from the beginning?'

Raksa looked up, pleased that Malfoy no longer seemed hysterical or on the brink of panic. And he smiled very softly. A mystical curve of lips, like that of the Mona Lisa, if the Mona Lisa had green fire eyes.

"Raksa, the Harry who protects the forest."

 **To be continue.**


	14. Reasons

Welcome to:  
 **  
SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 14 - Reasons ...**

"It's going to hurt, but I have to reset your bones."

The sharp twist of Raksa's fingers send a trail of agony that fluttered through his articulation. And although Draco had dealt with broken bones before, and already expected it, the hypersensitivity caused by the poison, made him need to bite his tongue, just not to scream.

With expert movements, the guardian manipulated the shards of bone, guided by what he could feel beneath the skin, and his own experience. Pretending not to hear the sounds of pain that he tried to swallow, and doing everything possible to make the experience more bearable.

"I'm done with the right," he finally muttered, tearing the rim of Draco's bloody robe to bandage the fracture.

He worked with the serenity of one who knows well what he does. The touch of his fingers on Draco's skin, as he finished tying the improvised bandage, was almost delicate, careful every time he was forced to touch him. Almost nonexistent contacts, like the antennae of a butterfly. So different from the angular and ferocious movements of the man he had known so far, that it was disturbing.

Nobody could change their body language so quickly and in such a natural looking way. Not without serious mental problems, or a training similar to his.

And could Potter have acquired the necessary skill? He didn't think so. Potter's mind wasn't Hale...

However ... what Draco had felt on himself, and what the so called Raksa had explained ...

He blinked, wiping away tears that he had not come to pour, watching the arachnid.

Oddly enough, the atmosphere between the two had become quiet.  
Draco watched his serene, completely calm face as he worked, delicately releasing his right hand, to take the left.

"... Raksa " He called

"Yes?" The guardian did not look up from his inspection of the second joint, as he began to replace the bones.

Draco gritted his teeth, speaking in an attempt to distract himself from the pain, and at the same time, to confirm his suspicions.

"When you said you were three. You, the human and the spider ... You did not mean it as a metaphor. Did you?"

Raksa finally lifted his gaze to Draco's tired, stained with blood and dry tears, face. And he straightened, releasing the hand already placed in the cradle of his lap, to prepare a new bandage.

"Yes, there are three of us."

Draco inclined his head, looking at this information, and the man who had given it to him, whose gaze was again on the careful work of bandaging him.

"How did I not see you before?" If Raksa had made an appearance at any time, he would know. That tender way of holding him, the way he moved, the serenity of his eyes, were things he would have remembered.

"I had not need to dispute the control of the human. He usually knows how to handle things without me having to intervene."

"... But not this time." It was not a question, and Malfoy looked at him with perfect calm. Raksa knew that motionless calm, Malfoy was contemplating something.

He let the air in his lungs escape with a sigh.

"No, not this time. Malfoy, I know he does not look it now, but Harry is not what you've seen so far." - he said, because the blond man had to understand, needed to know and accept Harry, as Harry also needed to understand and accept him. Nothing would work with this division as a void between them.

Draco's calm facade cracked with the gesture of scorn that twisted his lips.

"Is he not?" Sarcasm, but at least not the visceral hatred Raksa had learned to recognize in the gray pupils.

"His reasons are ... broad, but it is true that you do not deserve to be the target of his anger."

"And what are his reasons, Raksa?" He hissed unpleasantly. "Because what I've seen so far has only taught me what he can do!" He stretched out his arms, showing the bloody bandages in a gesture of resentment.

Malfoy was starting to get angry.

Raksa knew it was not a good attitude to listen with, but asking for something better was impossible now.

He gently took the thin pale hands between his much larger and black ones, not allowing the other to reject him.

"All the people he loved turned his back on him. Do you know what his best friend said to him, when he knew what he was? He called him a monster, a demon. And Dumbledore? The man he trusted more than anyone? Do you know what he said? That there was something dark inside Harry, something that was dangerous to others, but that he did not need to fear, because he wasn't mean to survive the battle anyway."

Draco had joined the order a year later, when Potter had been dead for months, and no one had told him the story in detail. The hero of the light had fallen in battle, and the people who had been there to see it; his loved ones, Dumbledore, Hermione ... didn't talk about it.

... elusive glances, silences, omissions ... Which suddenly became stained in dry blood.

He had thought that the reluctance to speak was due to the pain of loss, now he saw a much more macabre pattern.

Raksa was not lying, he could see it in his stance, in his eyes. It takes a liar to recognize one, and this man was not.

"Did they turn their back on him because he was a widow?" A whisper.

"On a creature that eats human flesh? That is not a wizard? That is so dangerous? Yes, Malfoy, they turned their back on him. You who have lived as a pure blood, should already know what the wizards have done with the magical beings. Their racism, their aversion, their cruel treatment; Deaths, exterminations, experiments…"

Draco swallowed.

"All of them?"

His eyes hardened, the marshy waters turned into a corrosive green.

"No one raised a finger when Dumbledore said that Harry must die. No one, Malfoy, no one." The words suppurated.

Draco squeezed Raksa's hand in his, as a way to comfort someone. He did not know whether Raksa or himself.

If they had abandoned Potter, had that known that Draco was also a spider, what would they had done?

He was a potions master, he had seen creatures cut down, beings as sentient and intelligent as him, chopped to pieces. Had worked with their organs and bones. But he had never cared because they were not human, they were not like him...

Potter's hatred, his visceral resentment, the violence ... suddenly he could easily see where they had come from.

Come to understand how a young man whom he remembered imbued with a sense of unshakable justice, brave, and almost mad in his heroics, had been able to metamorphose into someone capable of the things he had done to him.

"But he did not die," he muttered pensively.

"No, he did not. He decided that if he was going to fight in a war, he would do so for those who really needed him... the magical creatures that were being massacred."

The sudden clarity that flooded his thoughts made Draco close his eyes.

Now he understood at least a bit, even if he could not, would not, forgive Potter for what he had done to him, but ... they needed to talk, because he felt that all this, this viscous, icy relationship between the two, was like an infected wound. It needed to be opened and cleaned so it could start to heal. Or they would end up killing each other.

And perhaps, the decision also had something to do, with the presence of his own spider in the back of his mind.

He slipped from Raksa's lap, to sit on the floor in front of him.

"Call Potter, we need to talk."  
 **  
To be continue**.

 **Note:** A new chapter, this time un-betaed. I want to give my thanks to this fantastic beta I had and that took so much work, even when he wasn't feeling so well.

I will miss you my companion.

I hope you get better soon.


	15. Not alone

First of all, very merry Christmas to all of you. Here it comes a new chapter as very special gift for you all. I hope you like it ;)

And now…

Welcome to:  
 **  
SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 15 - We Are Not Alone  
**

(Harry)

In the corner where he had been locked, the outside was but a window like mirror, through which he could look, but not be seen, nor felt, nor heard.

At first he only howled like an animal and fought like a madman; Without mind, without direction, to regain control. The fear of being perpetually relegated to this space without space, a living thing that fed on his newly awakened memories, grew and grew with every passing minute, until it was unbearable.

Hatred, anger, the intolerable suffering of loss, betrayal ... began to suffocate him in layers and layers of feelings he did not wish to recall. They pounced on him and crushed him with their weight, Harry drowned, drowned ...

"RAKSA!" Where his threats had not been heard, this primary sound of pure anguish instantly attracted the attention of the guardian, his quieter, safer side, the protector of the triad. He did not need to say what was happening, Raksa had already been here when Harry's sanity began to deteriorate, so many years ago.

"Calm down." The voice of his other self, who was from the forest, had the timbre of a much older man, grave and rugged, deeply kind. The vibration he knew so well brought back some metaphoric oxygen, relieving the anguish.

With hands covered with calluses and scars, Raksa penetrated the psyche that belonged to Harry, and collected the memories that had been awakened by the psychic wound that Malfoy's words had opened.

Like oozing entrails, or decaying fruits, their touch was slippery and greasy. In their wake they left traces of a viscous slime, and the sweet, asphyxiating, smell, of food long decayed.

Harry shuddered at Raksa's movement, until those things were again behind the barriers of resentment and hatred, the guardian had erected to protect him, so long ago.

To keep his sanity intact.

Harry Potter was a withered body that had to remain in his niche, and Malfoy should not have lifted the lid of a coffin that was best left closed. The breaking of his wrists was a small price to pay for having disturbed the dead.

With the corpse again silent, and his belongings returned to the coffin, the human began to regain his composure.

The remnants of the experience were purged from his system in traces of black mud, to slide back to the well. Leaving him exhausted.

Then, and only then, in the silence and the relaxed murmur of the spider laying at his side, Harry began to grasp what he could see through the eyes of the guardian.

Malfoy was in his lap with his wrists bandaged in bloodstained cloth, his white hands of elegant fingers, cradled between Raksa's bigger and dark ones.

White against black was a beautiful contrast.

From the spider he felt a warm sense of belonging and the ever-present possessiveness, emanate in brief traces of color and sensation. Harry allowed the impressions to pass beside him in vibrant, delicate shapes, like bubbles, without bothering to grasp them or understand them.

The spider was simple, familiar, and looked satisfied. His presence helped to calm the last remains of the memories, with the frankness and the animal clarity that defined him.

The black widow never lied. He was a safe companion.

Harry let himself relax in his aura, as he watched, and now, too, listened to what was happening outside.

Raksa was talking, and when Harry recognized what about, he felt the anger relight in his psyche, like embers that are blown, sparking, and also, something like betrayal, that gnawed at his blood.

Because Raksa had no right to tell Malfoy that. He was aware that the guardian was not giving details, or narrating the most painful facts of that time, but however sketchy the story was, it was still something deeply his horribly his, he had no right to share. Even less so with Malfoy! That lying, manipulative, cruel man, who in their childhood had tortured Harry with such fury.

He had hated him. They had hated each other!

He prepared for the sarcastic laugh, and the cold curve of thin lips that he was already waiting for. For the words again hurtful, for the satisfaction on the gray pupils at knowing how he had been rejected by his friends and loved ones, for his malicious delight.

But all those things failed to materialize.

The lips curved, but down, worried, or perhaps sad, the pupils grew and grew large and black until they almost swallowed the gray ring that rocked them, the brows of a blond on the edge of silver were wrung in a sore arc. And words.

There were words tied together that formed phrases. Questions instead of teasing. How? Why? And finally. Everybody? And with each answer, his face became darker and sadder. Harry looked with increasing disbelief and surprise, which became as big as a mountain, when that delicate hand gripped his softly. Comforting.

Though he had broken his wrists, and had raped him, even though he had stolen him from his people, and put in his womb a child he did not want, the blond man, in spite of all that, was listening.

Trying to understand.

Empathizing with his loss and his pain. Stretching an offering of sympathy, that Harry would never have expected of him. Never from him, the aristocratic boy, cocky and evil he remembered.

Of the proud man he had met.

He was staring at Malfoy for what seemed like the first time, and what he was seeing was a reflection of what he knew, with nothing of the bad to tarnish it.

It was white, gray and silver, and red lips and crystalline chitin, was kind understanding, and beautiful, incomprehensibly beautiful. All his assumptions were falling around him in a slow deluge, and all Harry could see was the white beauty of Draco Malfoy.

No one outside the forest and his creatures had offered such kind sympathy. Neither Remus, who as a werewolf and should have understood him, nor Sirius, who had spent so many years himself betrayed and abandoned. Neither his best friends, nor any other ones whom he had grown up with as a wizard.

The wizards, who were so cruel, slavish, murderous ... But Malfoy, that was a pure blood, or that had grown up believing was one, that by all logic and sense should be the most sadistic of them all, the one who most enjoyed his agony, the less inclined to offer him comfort, here he was, doing exactly what no one in a thousand years would have believed.

Offering to listen to Harry Potter. The corpse nobody wanted or needed. Not to Raksa, not to the spider, not to the human who had stood as the protector of the forest, not to any of the parts that might be more willing to listen to him than Harry.

It was enough to see the imperceptible hardness of his mouth, to know that he meant it.

Harry's heart stopped, and then it kept pumping at the triple of speed, his brain made a couple of attempts to make sense of everything he was seeing, and then he simply decided to accept it, because he did not see that he could understand anything, not knowing how Malfoy had Grown, to become this man who was giving him gooseflesh.

The desire to accept the request and talk to him became, not a possibility to be contemplated, but an imperative. And although he had no intention of touching the corpse of Harry Potter, who had just come out of his grave, the one in which that boy had grown, the ruthless, protective, savage man, wanted to talk to Malfoy with the focused intensity of a laser.

He sketched the first psychic syllable to indicate to Raksa that he was well, he was calm, and he wanted to talk to him, when the wall behind him growled and creaked menacingly, announcing the arrival of someone who could only be an enemy.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

Pieces of stone and guts slid to the floor, and a fragment of the wall, almost as large as Raksa himself, began to collapse.

The Guardian's Reaction was immediate. And when Draco wanted to look for him, he was already standing and stood between what was coming, and him, still sitting on the floor.

Tense, armed with claws and fangs ...

His naked body was black, as chitin bloomed in his epidermis to dress him in full armor, with the polished and glistening quality of obsidian.

But it was easy to see that the chitin on his back was thinner and brittle, new, not as dark or opaque as the rest of the shell that protected his organism.

Weak.

The memory of how this being had been about to die in his arms, wanting to protect him from the collapse of Hogwarts struck Draco in the solar plexus, with the instinct of his own spider.

His muscles flexed reflexively, but he could not even try to stand up. Too weak, worn and soft, by poison, stress and fatigue.

Even so, that did not stop him from taking the abandoned wand, from no more than a meter away from where he remembered dropping it.

He clutched the wood between his fingers, alert to what was coming, remembering each of the defensive and offensive spells, which he could still execute with the little magic he had left.

Knowing that to use it had to be the last resort possible, because to spend his reserves would leave him unconscious, vulnerable to the enemy and without possibility to defend himself.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

Malfoy was weak as a kitten, after having used all his magic to save him (remembering made everything seem warmer), wounded, (by him, briefly reminded the spider; And a painful spark of guilt became bonfire in his skull), and he could not defend himself.

At that moment, for the first time in something that did not encompass the Dark Forest and its inhabitants, his three natures coincided in the desire to protect something.

Raksa, still in control of the body, interposed himself between the threat and the wonderfully mad blond man, offered the warning roar of the spider, and the ominous look of human threat.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

With the collapse of the castle, the attack of the Death Eaters, the desperate escape of the crowd ... could not be too many survivors in the ruins of Hogwarts.

Those who had not escaped in time, and who had not died under the shedding of tons of rock, with the hours that must have passed when he was unconscious, and the time that had then been spent in saving Potter, would have already been captured or annihilated by the Forces of the dark lord, leaving little chance for what, or who, that could be gnawing the stone to reach them, to be a friend.

Perhaps the Death Eaters had heard them speak, or were using some locator spell to search for their few remaining living enemies.

The dark lord would no doubt want anyone who could be captured alive. Be it for information, or to swell the ranks of slaves always hungry for new flesh.

Being aware of all this, made him remember...

Where Hermione and the others alive? Had they have fled in time, or had they died?

The doubt, which should have felt like a curse on his chest, which should be ripping him inside ... barely resulted in a vague twinge of interested.

Draco was aware then, for a second, of the spider that seemed to be the cause of it. His arachnid side had stretched over his feelings, and he did not seem willing to move.

It was as if he were saying; Now you do not need this, let me save it until you need it again. Draco decided not to discuss it. Not in the middle of the arrival of a possible enemy.

 **oOo**

More pieces of the wall began to fall apart, the structure supporting the cavern shuddered like a house of cards about to collapse, but against what Draco was beginning to fear, it resisted.

He watched with a certain emptiness in the stomach, as human remains were released from the mass of the wall, and fell with a wet sound similar to that of a garbage bag, to the ground.

The only advantage of there being so much blood in the rubble was that the moisture gathered the dust that could had risen, so he did not have to worry about breathing something, perhaps, poisonous.

Clumps of flesh and splinters of gray rock had not stopped falling, when someone entered through the opening.

The creature moved with inhuman fluidity, which Draco immediately associated with Potter and the acromantulas, and when he emerged completely by their side of the wall, and he was able to see him, Draco saw that the comparison had been more accurate than he wished.

He was tall, taller than Potter, and slender, much thinner, but fibrous and compact, with disproportionately long arms, finished in fine, elongated, delicate fingers, topped with sharp, thin claws, like the stiletto used by his father to open letters. That letter opener, which Draco knew very well, could cut through muscle tissue and hard cartilage, as if they were pudding.

His skin was the color of a jar of ink, and he seemed protected by the same kind of chitin as Potter's, hard and reflective, but it was not until he turned his head that Draco understood that this new entity was looking for something, and that that something, was himself.

He realised it the moment when those huge, dark, strange eyes, like fossilized wood, settled on his skin, like a palpable weight.

"Me, he's looking for me."

 **oOo**

(Harry)

What had been on the other side of the wall crossed with a sinuous step into the cavern, and the three who were Harry immediately recognized what he was; Another black widow, like them, and also a dominant one.

Taller, thinner, just as dangerous. Draco and he were supposed to be the only ones left, two of a specie virtually extinct, the arrival of another one should be a source of joy. A good surprise to receive with open arms. But it was not.

Not when Harry could clearly see that he was looking for Draco with a gentle intensity that could only be one thing ...

Raksa crouched with a primary grunt in his throat.

All his posture turned into an aggressive warning, that even bristled his hair. Hi bared his serrated teeth, his long, restless claws curved in the stone on the floor, his body tense like a metal dock, or a huge feline about to jump.

Jealous and protective were words that lost all their essence in the light of such an attitude. Possessive was not enough to cover what the spy could catch in the sound, guttural deep and offensive, that escaped through his fangs.

'Malfoy was his, HIS!'

Raksa dilated his nostrils to catch the smell of the other dominant, but what came to him was not the spicy aroma of bonfire, of one of his own, it was dry herbs and sulfurous vapors, insect shells, and dried fat, blood. Animal hair, alcohol, dust and soap ...

"What…?"

 **oOo**

From his position behind Raksa, Draco felt no fear of the new creature, not because he knew the Guardian was protecting him, or because the spider was mitigating all his reactions, but because the other's eyes were familiar and reassuring.

The hair around the nightmarish face was smooth and dull, hanging like a greasy black curtain from the skull...

Without realizing it at all, his nostrils dilated, he licked his lips and swallowed some air through his mouth. Draco was not aware of it, but he was examining the air, and beginning to use sensitive organs of smell that had been inactive for the twenty-seven years he had lived.

The smell was familiar.

Draco had caught that same scent last night; Was the dark and herbal perfume of hundreds of dried plants, spices and chemical vapors. It was an aroma that had cradled his childhood, and accompanied his adult life.

"Severus?"

The word seemed to break the moment, similar to floor slabs, a crystal glass.

"Draco. Are you injured?"

 **To be continue**

 **Note:** Maybe this is not the explanation you were waiting for, -don't worry that will come a little later- but still, we can see how Harry finally realised the man Draco is now is not the git he remembers.

This relationship needs so much work to be anything close to healthy…

I don't even know myself if it would be possible for them to be happy, or even together at this point.

I will want to know your opinions on this. What do you think?


	16. Faster

And now…

Welcome to:  
 **  
SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 16- Faster**

"Severus?"

"Draco. Are you hurt?" His dark gaze swept over Draco from head to toe, assessing him. Picking up the black, half-weary, half-sad circles around his eyes, the softness of his muscles, and the bloody rags bandaging his wrists.

... the state, pathetically fragile, in which he was.

"You're hurt," Severus repeated. This time not a question, but a dry, unpleasant affirmation, in which only those who knew him well, would have heard the old hidden concern, of Severus Snape.

For Draco, who was his nephew, and had grown up listening to it every time a new wave of influenza ravaged the school, it was impossible to ignore.

It made him feel the ridiculous desire of reassuring his godfather. Ridiculous, because it would have been useless to try and hide the gravity of his condition, from someone like him.

Suddenly, something beyond the cavern of rubble and human remains they were in, thundered and resonated...  
The unmistakable sound of falling rocks.

Draco's breath caught in his throat for a moment, as the guardian's eyes sharpened into radioactive green slits, and his posture became even more tense, like a trap about to spring up.

The sound got stronger, closer, as seconds ticked by.

"Whoever it is, they're coming, and we should leave before they arrive." Quiet, practical. "Can you get up?" Snape asked Draco, and stepped forward to offer his help.

Raksa hissed, and it was as if the old Head of Slytherin's house had just seen him, and not in all the time he had been in the cave already, for all the attention he had lent the other dominant, up to that moment.

The look he gave the Guardian was cool and calm, and expressed a total lack of care about the unveiled aggressiveness of the other.

"We do not have time to prove who _the dominant male_ is now." The Potions Master raised an eyebrow, showing what he thought of such an act. "I suggest you help Draco get up, so we can leave before the Dark Lord's servants, or one of our fellow rebels, arrive, and see us as we are now." Maybe he and the other dominant, could have changed into their human shape before being discovered, but he doubted Draco could. As recent as his transformations were bound to be, and wounded as he was, he would not control his instincts well enough for it.

 **oOo**

Snape's gesture of allowing Raksa be the one who held the submissive blond, despite his not so veiled sarcasm, did much to gain the collaboration of The Guardian. Even so, Harry still remained incredulous at the back of their shared mind, not entirely sure of what to think about Snape.

Anger, confusion, the old familiar resentment of his childhood ... but also vague doubt, since as with Malfoy, he could be mistaken in judging him for how little he could remember. Moreso, when he had not been present during those fateful days, in which he was abandoned by all.

The sound repeated, louder.

Now was not the time to think about such things.

Raksa was next to Draco in an instant, curving an arm around his waist to support him, while the blond slytherin used his diminishing energy reserves, to stand, letting The Guardian carry most of his weight.

"Follow me, and do not make a sound," Severus said in a quiet whisper.

Moving among the rubble quickly became a nightmare.

 **oOo**

The corridors had been blocked by the battered remains of the upper floors, which left only holes narrow as burrows, to move between open viscera, sharp stone, and rubble that could collapse at any moment.

At every step their feet slipped on the floor soaked in viscous blood. The smell of decomposition flooded their lungs, and stuck to their throats.

From time to time, the moan of some dying man reached their ears, but they could not stop to help those who could not be saved.

Not with ones who could be Death Eaters so close.

And though Draco knew there was nothing that could be done for them, turning his back on those in need made his skin freeze, and stomach twist around a nonexistent knot, though there was no feeling to back up the sensations.

The spider continued to act like a cloak between his chest, and his mind. And the emptiness where his heart should be was a blessing in the midst of such a nightmare.

When the spaces were too small for Raksa and him to fit together, Draco had to cling to the walls to support himself, as he crawled forward, trying not to think about what he was touching, what his fingers found when it was not hard rock under his buds, but soft, slippery masses on which his phalanges sank.

The sticky moisture like honey that clung to the skin. The solid and chipped pieces he could often delineate underneath…

Bones under flesh.

The scratches and abrasions he sometimes received when moving against stone... the fatigue that made his body heavy ... Draco knew he was running out of strength, getting slower and slower ... more clumsy ... and did not know how much longer he could stand the pace.

The sounds, like those of animals in hunt, came closer and closer, and it was obvious now that they had picked up the trail of their little procession, as it was obvious too, they could only be Deatheaters. No member of the light that could be searching among the rubble, would have ignored the dying people in need to catch with them.

Soon they would be caught, and then it would not matter what resistance they might present. If the Deatheaters gave the alarm, the result would remain the same… No matter how many they killed, the rest of the army would not be far in their attack of Hogwarts.

In the end, when they ran out of strength and their bodies could no longer sustain more wounds, they would die.

They had no chance against a force like that of the Dark Lord's armies, and Draco knew the other two were well aware of it.

He could feel it in the way they pulled him so insistently in search of an exit. In their frantic gestures, in the heavy silence that curved around then...

Draco was a burden in his condition. But Severus and Raksa refused to leave him behind. That, too, was evident, in the worried shadows of their eyes, and in the tenderness of The Guardian's touch.

Draco forced himself a little further, to the limit of what his organism was capable of, and prayed in silence for him not to be the cause of any of them dying.

 **oOo**

It happened almost at the same time.

The touch of fresh air in his nostrils, and the stroke of the first curse.

The impact threw them to the ground, as stones, wood, and corpse chunks rained around them.

The hit was so strong, that although the chitin protected him from the most violent encounter with the ground, Draco felt his whole body complain about the abruptness of the deal.

His muscles burned as if passed through boiling oil, stiff and tight, and they did not respond when he tried to get back on his feet.

He had no strength left.

Beside him Severus and Raksa were already up, facing where the attack had come from.

Draco followed their gazes.

At the entrance to the narrow corridor where they were, a group of Deatheaters had just arrived.

Their eyes were cold wells full of cruelty, their smiles cut their faces pale as blades, and their giggles had the cadence of bloodlust.

One of them held his wand up with a light spell, illuminating the way in a vague green light that reminded Draco of sick things about to die.

The phosphorescent circle didn't reach the three widows, but their smiles and postures said they knew there was someone there. Maybe they could guess their figures in the dark? He did not know, he did not want to find out either. The curse had given them up if nothing else. Without doubt their exclamations when rolling on the ground had already been enough.

It did not matter if they could see them now or not.

Another small breeze brushed the fine hair at the back of his neck, and the smell of the outside became unbearable. The scent of the pines in the forbidden forest, the burning smell of fire somewhere in what was left of Hogwarts, the cold of snow and night. They were so close, so close to the exit, that he could almost taste it on his tongue.

If only they could escape from these monsters...

Now they were a small group, but soon more would arrive. If they wanted to get out of there, it had to be now.

One of the Deatheaters, the one who looked like the leader, stepped forward.

"Well, well, what have we got here?"

Draco tightened his hold on the wand.

"Where did you think you were going, boys?" The Deatheater's wand swayed between his fingers almost indolently, totally certain he was in control of the situation ... Too bad it was not so.

Raksa passed by Draco quick and silent like a gust of wind, and the head of the leader was no longer attached to his body.

Blood splashed on the already soaked walls of the corridor, traces of vibrant and fresh red, over the already coagulated blackish brown, painting drops like stains of scarlet lacquer, on the skin covered with old crusts, of the exhausted blond man.

Severus only took a second longer to join the fight.

Chaos exploded in the hallway.

The howls of terror, pain, and anger burst into a rising cacophony, a long note, which grew louder and louder, until it hurt his ears.

Hot guts poured down to the puddles of the already bloody floor, the sounds of broken limbs joined the battle orchestra, bringing their own peculiar tone of agony. Curses crackled in the darkness with intense lights of red, blue, and green flasks, which showed the carnage as quickly as they left it in darkness.

Deatheaters did not stop coming at the sound, but Raksa and Severus moved as fast as the lights behind the window of a moving train. They were lethal shadows, murmurs impossible to capture, silent death-bearers, terrible monsters.

Draco could not stop looking, shaking and shaking, in the early stages of shock. The exhaustion, the psychic pressure... although the spider was mitigating it, the symptoms began to be seen. He did not know how much time he had left before all his barriers collapsed.

Even so, he could not have looked away from what was happening even if he had tried, even if he had wanted to.

The bodies of Raksa and Severus were black and glistening silhouettes, covered with sparkling red and alive, between the torn robes and the cadaverous masks of the dark soldiers. Their faces contorted in grimaces of visceral hatred, showed fangs oozing with green poison, vitae and saliva, sliding steadily down their jaws.

Their mirror-like eyes, intensely black, terrible and beautiful, kept searching for him... to make sure he was safe, to warn him not to move.

No one could reach him through this barrier of iron wills, endowed with teeth and claws, that acted as a crusher. Through those two men who were struggling to keep him safe.

Draco knew they were putting themselves in serious danger to protect him, and the feeling was ... He could not feel anything, nothing at all. But the fear for them was like a fish inside a tank. He knew he had it, but the spider's glass barrier prevented him from touching it. Still, sitting on the floor, his heart beated with the speed of a hummingbird, and as strong as a blacksmith's hammer. His body was collapsing, and he kept thinking; 'They can not keep up this forever.'

Draco stepped back, using the wall for support and forced himself, millimeter to millimeter, to stand up. It all hurt. Merlin... His stomach revealed itself violently, and he needed all the support of the stone to soldier the arcades as they ran through him like a convulsion. He put a hand to his mouth, wiping the bile that had risen to his lips with white, milky, fingers shiny with chitin.

He felt sick.

"Stop it," he muttered. He could not raise his voice from where it was trapped down his throat, which was closing until it was horribly difficult to breathe, but he knew they could hear him.

He hardened what was left of his voice, until he made it like a rock.

"Go away." If they left now, maybe they would still have a chance to get out of this alive, but not if they had to carry Draco. Not if they had to keep his broken pace.

Raksa looked at him.

"Go." Draco.

The Guardian's arm sank to the elbow on a Deatheater's torso, anger a living thing in his gestures.

"No," he hissed.

Draco heard the word made determination and rage, despite the distance and the noise. He vaguely wondered if it was a spider thing. If he was changing even more to suit it. If he really was still talking to Raksa, or if this violent creature was Potter again. Maybe. But it did not matter now.

"There is no time. Both of you… Go."

Severus looked up at him, with the familiar, dear, gaze of his childhood. And Draco wished to be sleeping between the silken, starched sheets of his bed in Malfoy manor. And the longing was so intense that it ran through his bones with a painful twinge.

He had spent many nights of childhood in that bed, sleeping, waking and stirring, studying the drawings of dragons and unicorns that his mother had ordered be painted on his ceiling, so that Draco had something to look at when sleep was slow to arrive, and made him company when nightmares woke him up, and he was too embarrassed to go and find his parents.

Now he would give a lot to go back to that happy time. In the midst of his family. But not the life of these two men.

He emptied all those memories from his mind, and hardened his face to the carved facets of a statue.

"GO!"

Severus only turned his eyes to Raksa.

"Get him out of here, I'll keep 'em."

Draco felt that what was left of his strength escaped with the breath of his lips.

"Do not... Severus ... NO!"

His body began to collapse, but Raksa or Potter was already there to hold him. Grab him, pull him.

Severus stood as a barrier between them and the Deatheaters, fighting with the violence of a grim reaper, but there were too many, too many. How much could he endure?

His godfather ... his godfather ...

"Draco, go to the house." And the man who had been like his second father, turned his head, soaked in blood and guts, and outlined by the light of the curses, and looked at him like he had when Draco had been a very young child. A baby playing hide and seek under his cloak, and enjoying the stories he told sitting on his knees. A black, quiet look, that said more than a warm embrace could say.

"Wait for me at my house." - And then his eyes changed to something ... something worried, something strange, something on the brink of anguish. - "But do not go to the forest. Draco, do not go to the woods."

"Uncle Sever ..." Draco felt weak as a child.

"Do not go to the woods." His eyes then left him, to rest on Potter for just a second.- "TAKE HIM!"

'NO NO NO'

But they were leaving already. And the silhouette of his uncle was lost in the darkness.

 **To be continue**

 **Note:** First of all I want to thank those few readers that helped with their opinions, so I could better assess this fic. Thanks guys.


	17. You are not alone

**Note:** So here we are with a new chapter. A long one it is. And one that's taken a lot of work.

You, my lovely few readers, wanted for them to have a healthy relationship, so I'm working hard on it.

For Draco and Harry to seem to be reaching an understanding, I have have to play heavily with Draco's spider and pain. Still, I didn't want to make Harry into more of an evil monster than he already is, so there's a lot of guilt going on with him too. As of now things are starting to get better, but they have a very long road to recovery left. I hope they will be able to eventually fall in love… let's see if they can. Shall we?

And now…

Welcome to:  
 **  
SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 19 - You are not alone**

"TAKE HIM AWAY!"

"NO!"

But they were already walking away, and his uncle was lost behind a bend of the road.

Later, Draco would not remember too much of the escape through the red mist of exhaustion, and the impossible embrace of shock.

He did remembered that Potter had pulled, and pulled him away, like a possessed man. Through corridors made of stone and blood, narrow and twisted like the spiral inside the shell of a snail. Far, far away, from the cries that were left behind them, and from his godfather.

While inside his brain 'Severus, Severus, Severus …' was a broken recording, of the same, increasingly incomprehensible, word. 'Severus…'

He remembered the first blow of night's air on his face, the freshness on his skin covered in sweat, blood and tears... When had he begun to cry? The moonlight in his eyes, cold and white, sharp... as the edge of a sword.

The stumps that had been Hogwarts scattered around him like the broken pieces of a sandcastle. Ruins, a shell devoured by fire.

And running, running, running ... Potter at his side. Potter screaming. Potter helping him along. Potter pulling him forward... Green eyes and black skin, and claws and fangs. And running, running, running ... until he could not breathe.

Processions of chained people, howls and tears, farther and farther away.

The Dementors on the sky, floating like delicate handkerchiefs made of nightmares. The giants roaring. People screaming. Small remnants of resistance still in combat. The Death Eaters...

One second he thought he had seen Sirius, but in the midst of such madness, his figure had disappeared among the swarm of fighters, only a blink later. His black hair ruffled as he wielded his wand like a whip.

Draco remembered the light of the moon as silver oil on the fields. He remembered the red of the flames on the stone more and more distant. The black of the ash that floated in the wind, dirtying the immaculate white of the landscape. His feet sinking into snow and ice.

And he remembered shouting as they finally crossed the castle's barriers. The liberating sensation when the magic that prevented them from apparating finally escaped their skin. Relief so divine as to be almost painful.

Draco knew to have smiled between tears and blood, while those who were chasing them stretched out to catch them, and he raised his wand with stone-heavy fingers ... and spent every tiny speck left of his magic to transport them both to the house.

The howls of rage far, farther and farther away ...

Then, just blessed darkness.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

He woke up bathed in the pale, dying light of morning, filtering through the stained glass and the dusty shutters of a bedroom...Draco blinked, and pushed a lock of dirty brown hair from his face.

The movement brought to the forefront of his awareness other things too; the rubbing of the sheets on his skin, soft and worn from so many washes, the weight of a good pile of blankets on his body, the soft pressure of a pillow under his head...

Everything smelled of dust and spices, old wood and leather, new and old magic, and dried pressed flowers.

Safeness... home.

Turning his head slightly to look at the room he had at his godfather's house, Draco could see that everything was as he had left it, the last time he was there, almost a year ago.

The books, copies of his favorites, placed neatly on the small shelf in the corner. His desk with the set of silver-tipped feathers, Pansy had given him for his twentieth birthday. The simple, spartan chair. The beautifully decorated armoire that had been his uncle's mother's. The trunk of his time at Hogwarts, that he had liked too much to throw away, but had not wished to leave in Malfoy Manor...

Ancient photos in frames just as old, scattered on the desk and walls. Posters of his teenage years, he had never found the will to take off the walls...

This room had always had the air of a memento box. And now, covered in dust, it was an almost breathable aura.

Draco closed his eyes to wrap himself in it.

At the edge of his conscious mind, there were things waiting for him to decide to pay attention to, but he knew… somehow, that they couldn't be good. And Draco just wanted to let himself rest. Not think about anything. 

Whatever they were, they could wait a bit longer.

The door opened with a small rustling squeak, with the arrival of someone else. Surely It must be his godfather, annoyed because he had decided to sleep late again. There was always something to do in this absurd war.

Never a moment of rest.

Draco thought about asking for a few more minutes of shuteye... but the steps that came close to his bed were not his uncle's ... they were too soft and subtle. Like the footsteps of a cat. If the wood was not so old and prone to crunch under the slightest weight, he probably would not have heard him approach.

"Malfoy, are you awake?" A whisper.

That voice...

He opened his eyes again.

Potter was standing by his bed. No longer the teenager he remembered, but a man. A tall, muscular man with the build of an athlete, and the posture of a huge feline ... no, of a spider.

"A spider." What he had been avoiding, began to stretch through his psyche as he looked at the other man.

His skin, golden as syrup, revealed a life in the open. His black hair, more biten than cut, damp from the shower he must have taken, brushed his shoulders in tips and fringes vaguely tamed by the weight of the water, dampening the hem of his black shirt.  
Draco recognized the black t-shirt and gray pants as his own, and thought that, although a little tight, they did not look bad on him.

Potter was barefoot.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

Malfoy looked at him with the relaxed calm of someone not yet fully conscious.

Considering how he had just awoken after emptying all of his magical reserve, experiencing a fit of shock, having his wrists broken, and of fleeing through what seemed to be the most nightmarish obstacle race Harry could remember, this reaction was far better than he had expected.

At least he seemed lucid.

"How do you feel?" Harry gently laid two fingers on his forehead still stained with dried blood. It looked like the skin had a normal temperature. No longer cold, as a continued state of shock would have caused. That was good. 

**oOo**

Draco blinked languidly.

What was Potter doing here...?

Memories stretched, lifted, and invaded the inside of his skull to fill it to burst. And with them, all the feelings that the spider had been keeping away, but that now that he was safe, no longer saw the need to isolate him from.

Fear, pain, anguish, anger, worry ... fear, fear, fear, fear, FEAR, FEAR, **FEAR**!

The primary terror penetrated his entrails like a spear, and ascended through his organs until it reached his throat, from where it poured into a weak, small and tiny groan, like that of an injured animal, which has been left no strength to howl.

His eyes flooded with tears.

And his whole body began to tremble faintly.

They fear for his loved ones choked him.

" ... Severus …"the voice in which the name came out, was a voice without voice, a voice more appropriate for long nights away from home, and the cold of winter streets. A sound for abandoned children and people without hope.

In Draco's throat more names, many names, were struck; Sirius, Hermione, Rose, Hugo, Teddy, Remus ... but his lips could not shape them.

His chest was cracking inside, and getting undone in thick streams of horror. Everything he had fought for for so long, was gone, the people he loved so much ... dead, or captured, or sold, or dying ... but lost. The castle, Hogwarts, which had been a sanctuary, a home, a haven for so many good people ... demolished.

Everything had collapsed, and it hurt, it hurt too much. Draco had nothing left.

Nothing.

 **oOo**

(Harry)

He saw clear as day the moment when Malfoy began to collapse, the instant his eyes filled with understanding, and everything began to tear him apart. How the axis that held his world, broke, and it crashed against the ground, breaking into thousands of sharp crystal shards.

That precise second when Malfoy began to crack, like a delicate enamel sculpture.

And Harry, who had finally begun to see who Draco Malfoy was, that could not forget how this man had given him the benefit of the doubt, when everyone he had trusted had turned his back on him ... knew he would not let this wonderfully mad blonde man, tear apart, if he could help it.

Before being aware of what he was doing, Malfoy was a trembling body against his chest, within the circle of his arms. The slytherin was his age, almost as tall as Harry, and though thin, he had the graceful constitution of an athlete, but at this moment, he felt as small and scrawny as a street kid.

"Shhh." Potter rested his lips on filthy hair, matted with blood, mud, and dust, slid his hands down the curve of a trembling back,  
as Malfoy began to sob. Very quiet sounds, that shivered all over his body, and sounded as if his soul was trying to escape through his throat.

Harry recognized it.

It was the same pain that had flooded his early days in the woods, when all he could think of was the betrayal of everyone he had loved, and how they had abandoned him.

How it had seemed like nothing was left for him in the world.

In those moments, in the midst of the pain that had been destroying Harry, he had not though he could have come out of it, if Soul has not been at his side, consoling and keeping him whole. Managing to make Harry see that despite his world having collapsed, he was not alone.

At the time he had needed those words like nothing else in the world. And Harry understood that Malfoy craved the same now.

"You're not alone. You're not alone, I'm here. I'm not going to leave, I'm not going to go." Harry began to rock the spy in his arms, offering in quiet, soft and constant whispers, the same words he had been gifted so long ago.

"You're not alone."

An hour later, Draco's arms, trembling and weak, eventually returned the embrace, and his fingers dug desperately into his shirt.

Malfoy's tears poured over the cloth, and were lost between the fibers, moistening it, to become a stain darker than the fabric. A stain that continued to grow, while the translucent droplets flowed, and flowed, between almost silent sobs, and equally silent words.

The stain clung to the warm skin beneath, and the tears filtered into Harry's epidermis, making him aware of their presence, in am almost intravenous way.

The old gryffindor hugged Draco closer, pressed his lips to a pale ear, still muttering words that tried to be comforting. Curving long fingers into his filthy hair and against his trembling back, trying to absorb all that suffering through his pores.

He held the blond until the grey reddened eyes had nothing more to give, and the body, trembling, surrounded in Harry's arms, surrendered to the calm cadence of his voice, his reassuring heartbeat ... and the spy fell into the welcome embrace of sleep and oblivion.

Draco never became aware of how his hands had been gripping Harry the entire time they were together, curling into the dark shirt with the despair of an abandoned child.

 **oOo**

(Draco)

When he awoke again, the gray morning light had become the red stripes of dusk. A color like that of fiery embers, sticking between the old wooden blinds, lighting the room, and turning sparkly the dust floating in the stagnant air.

Draco blinked.

His head felt heavy, as if he had drunk too much the day before, and his body was heavy, reluctant to move from the protective cocoon of blankets around him.

And yet, in spite of them, he felt cold, tired... the events of days gone by, no longer hurt as if some maniac had decided to open his chest using a blunt piece of rusty metal.

Not after the morning's purge (when he had collapsed entirely into shock), and the nightmare-filled sleep he vaguely remembered, but what remained of the agony was a throbbing ache around the cold feeling of emptiness he couldn't shake off

Not heart-shattering pain unless he poked at it.

Still, now that he was calm enough to think, he understood that Hogwarts might not had fallen. Maybe it was nothing but rubble, maybe it still resisted. If so, some of his loved ones could still have survived. But ... The idea was of a hope so childish, it seemed ridiculous.

The order had safe houses like this, scattered throughout England, and strict protocols in case of evacuation. But with so little time. In an attack as violent as the one they had suffered...

To believe that at least one of them was still alive, was to think that he or she was now going to be a slave, or worse. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing anyone could do.

It would be better if they were all dead.

The dead could not be tortured. The dead do not suffer.

He swallowed, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. Something to grasp to keep at bay the worst of the emptiness.

They had to be dead.

Draco clung to the idea with all his might.

And Potter...

He looked around, but Potter was not in the room. He listened, and heard a noise on the floor below.

He was not very far away then.

Knowing Potter was not that far...

Something minuscule and warm spread through his intestines ... hot where there was so much cold. Draco decided not to think about it. Not when everything was so confused, so strange, so broken.

What Potter had done to him, what they had done to Potter (if what Raksa had told him was true), his protection, his anger, his affection, his hatred ... all this sick situation they were in ... He was not even sure how he felt about the ex-gryffindor. And he was not sure if it mattered at all. But it was something to look at, beyond the pain of not knowing if his loved ones were even alive.

And therefore, infinitely more palatable.

Draco felt hatred ... yes, definitely. And disgust, and resentment buried so long ago that it no longer mattered, and... and ... that sense of horror when he thought Potter was dying, when he still did not know who he was. And also ... too ... there were so many things intermingled and overlapping, so many layers of feelings not all completely his ... just trying to untangle them made him dizzy.

He swallowed.

This poisonous relationship they had must be made clean, before he could make any decision. Before he could even think about ...

His godfather; supplied his mind.

Immediately he closed that line of thought, that path of agony that seemed like a whack in his skull. Because the pain there was too intense. And Draco didn't believe, that today, he could bear to suffer even more than he had already suffered.

Perhaps, if he cleaned the wound that Potter was in his psyche, if Draco could get him to listen and speak sincerely, repair something of what was left of his life, feel that at least some small fragment could still be mended...

He would feel better, and thinking of Severus without vomiting, without shouting, wouldn't look so impossible…

Carefully, Malfoy sat up in bed, trying not to put too much weight on his wrists joints. They hardly hurt, but he preferred not to impel the progress of his recovery. Once he was up against the wrought-iron headboard, the blonde looked down at his arms thoughtfully, still covered in dry blood, mud, ash, and Raksa's makeshift, now stiff and dry, bandages, that did not help improve their appearance.

Draco frowned, lifted his hands and turned them carefully, studying how they felt ... and some of the tension in his stance fell away.

He was completely human again. No chitin, nor the unnaturally white shade of the spider's skin. The claws had also retracted, to be only the blunt fingernails of a normal man.

Relief materialized in the form of a deeply tired sigh.

"Malfoy?" The sound was almost non-existent, but it must have been enough for Potter's fine ear.

The voice came from the floor below, somewhat muted, but not as much as it should have been. Were his senses, too, sharpening as he mingled with the spider? Draco set the idea aside for later. Too many things to contemplate.

Priorities.

"I'm awake," he muttered.

Potter's steps on the stairs did not take long to be heard.

A minute later the dark haired man entered the room loaded with a tray overflowing with freshly cooked food; The smell, delicious, made Draco's stomach growl, earning a brief curve of ex-gryffindor's lips. An almost invisible smile.

Draco stood still, while Potter, still dressed in his shirt and trousers, still human, placed the tray carefully in his lap. The old gryffindor had surpassed every expectation. There was a plate of golden toast, crunchy bacon, eggs, cereal, pumpkin juice, and some honey in a thimble ... (food from the magically preserved pantry of his uncle, no doubt) Draco swallowed, feeling the pull of hunger long ignored. He had not eaten well in days.

Potter looked up, searching for his gaze. So intense ... to look away an instant later, in an almost ashamed gesture, almost ... guilty?

"You should eat something, take a shower. Then ... Then I think we should talk."

"Potter…"

The dark man didn't give him time to respond.

"I'll wait for you downstairs." 

**oOo**

Draco ate without savoring the morsels, showered in the tiny, rusty and narrow bathroom, before dressing, devoting only a glance to his reflection; The Draco Malfoy in the mirror was pale, as if he had not been out in weeks, there were mauve bags of sleep deprivation and weariness around his eyes, and he seemed a bit more worn at the edges, but he was not the unrecognizable and alienated creature, Draco had almost expected to find.

The image made him feel a little more like himself, as he took the comb that Potter must had left in the sink, (no doubt he had used it, because there were a few hairs like black sooty strands, trapped in the bristles of the brush), and tried to put some order into his own wet hair.

The result was that the water stuck the strands to his skull, copying the hairstyle he used to wear as a child, making him appear much younger, and his eyes look larger. It did not feel unpleasant, but Draco doubted that Potter needed more reminders of that time, which was surely painful for him.

The conversation waiting for them was bound to be already quite complicated without details like this.

The comb returned to its place in the sink, and Draco ran his hands through his hair, burying his fingers violently between the strands, in a gesture that spoke, for a second, of everything floating under the crust of ice with which he was trying to surround himself.

The agitation of the gesture, causing the blond locks to scatter around his face in tips and wings that gathered behind his ears, and clung to his neck disorderly, giving him a disheveled, and sad appearance.

Strangely, the reflection was more familiar than he expected.

He sighed and turned his back on the mirror, squaring his shoulders.

 **oOo**

Harry waited for Malfoy in the living room.

To occupy the time he lit the fireplace, and prepared some tea with the dried leaves he found in a can, inside the pantry. The pantry at the back of the small kitchen, preserved with a spell of ecstasy, which was full to bursting with fresh vegetables, juicy meat and other delicacies.

He thought about what he would cook for dinner, and ended up returning to the living room with a tray containing two porcelain cups, a teapot full of hot milk, sugar, spoons, and a cookie dish.

After putting everything on the low table in front of the sofa, he ran out of things to do. Draco was not done yet, and Harry could not help but start thinking.

To try to silence his mind, he looked at the walls covered with faded wallpaper, a color between dirty brown and greenish gray. He gazed at the bookshelves full of potions books, and a few, scattered, novels, that didn't manage to hold his interest even a minute. At the worn carpet of whom knew what kind of animal's fur. At the gray and blackened stone fireplace, the few photos of unknown people on the mantel... Even at the still closed door.

Anywhere but inside his own skull, where thoughts he didn't want to contemplate, rested.

Yet, soon Harry was left with nothing more to observe, and the thoughts returned to his brain.

This time Harry left them, because deep down he knew that sooner or later he would have to contemplate them, and because Raksa threatened to force him, if he did not stop trying to suppress the need. Often the guardian was as inflexible as a father.

What came to his mind was what he had already predicted; Powerful, suffocating, guilt.

Dirty and putrid images of the things he had done to Malfoy.

The memories were like fragments of a movie; Here pale lips parted in a groan of pain, there white skin marred by the bloom of a bruise, blood mixed with semen clinging to pale thighs ... And in the middle of such horrors, the conversation he had spied through the eyes of Raksa, the slender hand clenching his own, grey clear eyes full of concern, words joined in phrases that tried to understand, instead of judging.

And deep in the background of everything else, the vague impressions he kept of the moments he thought he was dying: Draco begging him not to leave him alone, his tongue on his skin, his fear of losing Harry so easy to read in the trembling of his voice, like rain pelting on crystal.

At that moment, in spite of everything Harry had already submitted him to, Malfoy had still wanted him at his side. Perhaps because of the influence of his own spider, but ... if he had not known who Harry really was, could they have advanced from there? Be ... something ... together?

Doubt, juxtaposed to guilt, was like acid in his gut. Since now that he had seen what was under the facade of the slytherin, he wanted more of him. He wanted to meet this man he knew nothing about, wanted... wanted...

"To have a mate?" Raksa's voice penetrated the bubble of his thoughts, and the spider hissed with an almost violent possessiveness and affection.

Harry closed his eyes, letting his head fall, leaning against the back of the sofa on which he sat. When two of his three personas agreed on something, it was almost impossible to pretend otherwise.

Yes, he wanted the Malfoy he had but glimpsed, as his mate, but after all he has done, how could he make it up to him? How could he even hope for Malfoy to want to have something to do with Harry? How could he hope to pay for everything he had done to the blonde? Remove the pain?

It was impossible.

Harry would be surprised if the spy stayed in the same room as him, a minute longer than necessary.

'Trying Harry, trying with all your might.' Raksa mused.

Harry hoped it would be enough.

 **oOo**

Draco came down the stairs step by step, feeling the dry wood covered with a thin crust of dirt and dust, under his bare feet, so as not to pay too much attention, to the crazy heartbeat of his own heart.

He was nervous, and he certainly did not know what to expect from the upcoming conversation, but he hoped to clean up his relationship with Potter. Get to know something of the truth, even if maybe not all of it. Just understand how everything had come to this point.

Potter was waiting for him in the living room.

Draco went to the door, drew around himself, as tightly as possible, the coat of calm he had crafted for himself, and grabbed the latch.

 **oOo**

Harry straightened the instant he heard footsteps on the stairs, and when Malfoy opened the door, he was ready to greet him with a hot cup in his hands.

"Malfoy, please sit down." He offered the chair beside the sofa.

Draco nodded graciously accepting the offer.

Malfoy had changed his clothes, and now he looked almost like his old elegant self, in the expensive soft gray shirt, and black pants.

His impassive face, and straight posture, seemed to say that nothing affected him, and his gestures were those of an aristocrat. But Harry could see the slight trembling almost hidden in his hands, as he picked up the cup he had placed in front of him.

Malfoy was wearing a mask. A damn good one. However, Harry did not want to deal with masks. Not now, not with Malfoy. Not when he knew what lay underneath.

He lifted his head a little, and allowed himself, for the first time in a long time, to heed his gryffindor part.

"Malfoy." He called.

The use of his last name made the slytherin look at him instantly. His pupils enormous.

"You wanted to talk to me, and here I am. Do us both the favor of being here too." He could not have sounded more like his teenage self, if he tried.

Direct, undoubtedly open. But leaving the hostility of their childhood out. Those hatreds were buried, and he wanted Malfoy, no, Draco, to see him, and to recognize the Harry he must remember talking to his friends, and not to him. It was what Malfoy had seemed to ask for. It was what he, therefore, had to give.

Draco had not been prepared to find Harry Potter so soon, he believed that first he would have to dance around the cruel man who had replaced him, maybe ask Raksa for help, before he could communicate with the Harry he remembered.

But those words, that slightly proud, and deeply kind gesture that he thought he would never see again, could only be his.

He dropped his mask of calm.

Harry stared at the smoothness of his impassible face as the expression peeled, like a gossamer film, off the spy's pale skin. His shoulders sank with fatigue, his body slumped in the chair, allowing all his weight to rest on the piece of furniture, his hands curved around the heat of the cup, as his face lost its hardness, for exhaustion to make its appearance in the curve of his lips.

Malfoy was at the end of his rope. But he no longer hide behind a barrier, keeping Harry from meeting him.

The confidence necessary for a gesture like that, from someone accustomed to hide, like Malfoy, made Harry cradle a small hope that this might not result in complete disaster.

He took the plate full of cookies and brought it to him.

"You can have some, they are plenty sugary. It will help with the tiredness."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, but took a few.

"Thank you." His voice sounded a little hoarse, the crying of that morning must have left its mark.

Before realizing it, Harry had his fingers posed on the curve of the delicate throat. Malfoy fell completely still. His defenses rose in his eyes, gray as steel. "Potter …" Ice.

Harry put his hand away at once.

"I'm sorry, the spider is ... possessive." He swallowed. It was difficult, not knowing how to act. He cupped his own tea in his hands, and closed his fingers tightly around the mug, to prevent another similar slip from repeating itself.

Draco's posture slowly relaxed again, and the blade-like edge of his eyes ceased to be so sharp. However, it was clear that now, the human was in full control. And Harry could not trust the spider of the slytherin to help him gain his forgiveness.

It made things more difficult.

Draco let the adrenaline leave him little by little. He had not been prepared for Potter's gesture, and it had gotten on his nerves quite a bit, but the ex-gryffindor had apologised, reinforcing his belief that he really was with whom he wanted to speak to.

"Potter" He whispered. The ex-gryffindor looked up, still somewhat mortified by what had just happened, and Draco drew strength from the vulnerability he could see in him. "I wanted to talk with you. I need explanations." He inhaled air very gently, trying to remain calm. "What exactly happened to make you become... this?"

Harry squeezed the cup harder, could feel his claws wanting to pierce his flesh and come to the surface, but kept them hidden by sheer willpower. He had already known that Draco would ask this.

"Raksa already told you the basics." He did not look up.

"Yes, he said that your loved ones ... abandoned you. But he did not tell me anything else." Draco knew he was dealing with something horribly painful, he could see it in the tense curve of Potter's body, hard as a strip of steel.

"What else is there to tell? They found out what I was, they turned their back on me, sent me to death. End of the matter." God, he did not want to talk about this. 'But you owe him.' supplied Raksa, and Harry knew he was right, but it was painful.

A warm hand settled on his arm.

Abruptly the tension subsided from his muscles and he looked at Draco, feeling the blonde's hand settle quietly on his arm.

"Draco …"

The spy blinked and withdrew his fingers, as if he had not known of his own gesture.

"So it's true," said the blond. His voice charged with a strange timbre, which had nothing to do with the tears of the morning, and everything to do with Potter falling his name for the first time.

"Yes," Harry whispered. And this time he forced himself to make a real effort to speak. "I know it's hard to believe. But it's the truth. When ... when I turned seventeen, I was in Hogwarts for a week, it was still summer, and the students had not returned. They would not return, because a few months later the war would begin. I think you remember."

Draco nodded, listening with every fiber of his being how this man who had been good, so damn good, exposed the festering scars that had made him a monster.

"A week is what long took my first change. It was ... "He shook his head, not wanting to remember. He could not describe the agony he had been through. Malfoy did not know how lucky he had been by having the help of the great spirit of the forest. "I got close to dying, they told me." He shrugged. "Then Dumbledore came to explain what it was that had happened to me. I don't think you need the exact words, let's say that monster was not far from the general idea."

Draco's hand had returned to his arm, and Harry took strength from it.

"My friends, my family ... they did not take it much better. Widows are a cursed race, you know?" He clenched his teeth, refusing to remember any of it, to touch the tomb of the real Harry Potter. The words were just that, sounds, nothing more . "Some say that we bring bad luck, maybe it's true." He shook his head. Recovering the thread of the story with anger very close to the surface, but controlled. "There's not much else to tell. Freak, you have to kill the Dark Lord, but do not bother getting out of it alive. It's logical, right? A monster to kill a monster."

Draco could practically feel the pain and anger, under the fabric of Potter's sleeve, radiate through the skin of his arm.

Potter's voice dripped suffering and resentment, so powerful as to be impossible to ignore. This was not the whole story, it was obvious, but it was also easy, so very easy, to see what the rejection of his friends and loved ones had done to the no longer a gryffindor. And he did not want to push him any further into the memory.

Because this was Harry Potter, he could see it in every detail of the man who was suffering in front of him. In the gesture of his chin, in the way he spoke, in the grass-green of his eyes. No one else could have eyes like those, so green and bright. And knowing how they could become faceted gems of toxic emerald, only made Draco understand even better what had been done to this man. Who he had been made into by rejection, abandonment and hatred.

"Potter ... I do not think you're a monster."

Harry looked up abruptly, suddenly clear gazed. Just as Draco remembered him to be when they were young; alive, clean.

"Malfoy?" It was so broken ... but ...

"Do not get me wrong, I do not forgive you for what you've done to me." He looked meaningfully at the wrist of the hand with which, he was still holding his undrinked tea mug.

He had thrown the bloodstained cloth away, but his skin still remained violently bruised. Draco raised his eyes again, and fixed his intense, fierce rain-like gray gaze on the grass-green of Potter's. "I don't forgive you. That's something you will have to win for yourself, if you want it. But I don't think you a monster."

Harry swallowed. He could not believe what he was hearing, it could not be ... true. Malfoy ... did not think him a monster? He, the one who should, more than anyone else?

"After all I've done ..." His throat ached. His eyes burned. "You don't think ... me a monster?" The question was so incredulous, so fragile, and broken, that Draco could only feel a pang of ... pity.

"No, I don't think you one. You have been protecting the forest, you have killed, but that is what your nature impels you to do. I do not think you're a monster for being what you are, just like I do not think any predators are." It was the truth. He realized that he could no longer think of Potter as a monster, (perhaps because he was a widow too). But that did not change what he had done. He would not forgive him.

"So what did you do? Why did you go into the woods? " He still needed to know more, and Potter, too, seemed to need to think about something else. Something less painful.

Harry lowered his gaze again to the cup, contemplating events far away in time.

"I attacked Voldemort." Draco shuddered at the name. "But I did not have the soul in the fight, I lost. I fell unconscious, but he did not kill me. I don't know if he thought he had killed me already. Maybe he supposed the wounds would end me anyway." He shrugged. "But I survived, the spider's recovery abilities, even if they were not yet fully developed then, were enough. I awoke already in the forest, the acromantulas recognized me as one of them when they went out to the battlefield to devour the corpses, and took me with them. At first I regretted having survived. My life was meaningless without my friends, and having failed the only task left to me …"

He did not speak of his desperate longing for death, but Malfoy seemed to have understood anyway. He had risen from his seat, and was now sitting beside him on the couch, his body warmly close to his.

An offer of consolation without words, which Harry could not believe he deserved of him. Not from him. And to receive it, only nailed a little deeper, the thorn of appreciation, he was already beginning to feel for the blond man. For Malfoy. For Draco.

'God, Draco, forgive me.' Harry thought in despair, as he continued speaking.

"The great spirit welcomed me. He gave me this life as a guardian. Since then I have protected creatures like us. I have killed and fed on humans. And I don't regret it Draco. I don't regret any of it." He gritted his teeth, and refused to feel any further guilt over this. It was what it was, and if Draco wanted to meet him, he also had to know this.

"I told you already; you killed, but I don't think you did it for no reason." Draco remembered all too well the incursions sent by Voldemort into the Dark Forest. His greed for ingredients, for magical creatures to torture.

And he also remembered how Potter had massacred the Death Eaters who had dared to tread his woods.

Draco could not blame him for it. He too would have killed, had killed, for the ones he loved ... no mather if they were liars and traitors.

He wondered how Hermione, Ron, Remus, and the others would have reacted, if they had known what he was.

If they had turned their backs on Harry, their best and dearest friend, the icon of light, what hope could he have had for their understanding? Maybe it was better this way, maybe it was for the best. That everything ended like this, at Hogwarts. Now he could remember them fondly, because they could never say otherwise.

They were dead. They had to be.

He clenched his teeth, avoiding the pain. There were more things that needed clarification.

"The spirit of the forest?"

Harry nodded.

"Yes, the soul that is the first tree of the forest. He is the one whose magic holds the barriers."

A, so it was him the one containing Voldemort's magical attacks.

"I get it." He mouthed. "I have only one question left." Potter looked at him as if he was holding the world in his hands. Draco ignored the idea, as it was unthinkable that Potter would consider him ... so. "Why? Why did you do this to me?"

A, the great wound. He still felt it oozing under his epidermis. Draco needed desperately to clean it. But what he would never have expected was for Potter to leave the cup he had been holding on the nightstand, then stealing the one on Draco's own hands, to leave it next to the other, and finally, be able to hold his pale hand in his golden ones, soft and warm.

Guilt was written on Potter's face, and his broad shoulders had fallen under its huge weight.

"Malfoy," he whispered faintly, not looking away from him for a moment. Without hiding. "What I have done, has been …" he had no words, and decided not to try to give them shape. "And I can't ask for your forgiveness. I don't deserve it." Harry swallowed. His throat felt dry, icy, as if he'd swallowed frozen sand. But he forced his voice to work, because Malfoy had to hear this. "I was alone, I was so for such a long time. In the forest I learned to be the animal the wizards of Hogwarts said I was. And when I saw you ...I let myself be devoured by instinct. You were the only submissive of our species that I had ever seen, I thought we were the last." He did not say that maybe, now, they truly were the last. If Snape had not survived the attack. "I wanted you so much… but ... to know who you were ... I will not lie, Malfoy, I hate wizards. They torture creatures no less intelligent than them, no less sensitive, for mere pleasure, to make potions, for their skin, without stopping to think about what they do. Their lives have no value beyond the price they must pay in the market to get them. And you ... you grew up as a pure blood ... I remembered how you were when we were children. Your gratuitous cruelty, everything that you had done to me. And I blamed you for everything that had happened. A untrue as it was, it felt like relief I had been needing for so long to finally be able to take vengeance..." he caressed Malfoy's limp hand in his. "I was wrong. I had been so wrong." The anguish, the pain of what he had had to remember, accumulated and grew until he could no longer contain them, and a choked sob escaped his throat. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The words cracked and broke. "I need you." It was the only reason he could give to keep Draco by his side. It was all he had. And it sounded so pathetic and weak, so inadequate ... but it was all he could offer. Everything he could give without revealing a secret that was not his, and that should never leave the forest, not even to win Malfoy's forgiveness. "I'm sorry."

Draco listened in silence, saw the regret and the guilt, and the motives, as clear and easy to follow as fatuous fires in the dark. And although it was not enough to forgive, it was not. He did not even know if he could eventually. His spider began to pay attention to this excess of emotions, and murmured his need of Potter, of his love, protection, his company and ... love. Especially now that he was alone, he was ...

Pregnant.

And Draco remembered all too well, thanks to the spider, how he had felt when he thought the other was dying. Were not widows the kind of creatures that mated for life? And now, with all his loved ones possibly dead...

The spider began to stir, he did not like to see his dominant suffer, he did not like this. And Draco was already so tired...

He carefully lifted the hand he still had on Potter's arm, to the nape of his neck, and drew Harry towards him until their foreheads touched. Until he could look at his iridescent tears, so impossibly close, as to be able to, if he so wished, count the individual eyelashes of his eyelids. Close enough to drown in his pupils. In the luminous green of his eyes.

"Potter," he whispered very softly. "Do not cry. I will not forgive you." His breath broke against the dark man's lips. "But …" he muttered almost silently. "I need you too."

 **To be continue**


	18. The left hand

**Note:** Here it's a new chapter. This time about the spy and some of Hogwarts's survivors. It's not much, and it has scarcely any explanation, as they will come later. But since you wanted to know about him, and I need some time to properly write Harry's and Draco's encounter, I thought it would be worth it.

And now…

Welcome to:  
 **  
SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 18-The Left Hand.**

The sound of the chains dragged by dozens of people through silt and snow, the quiet sobs and painful groans that sometimes rose among the prisoners, until the snap of a whip made them silent, announced to the people in the streets the convoy's arrival.

Civilians emerged from their filthy houses of gray stone, joining passers-by who had stopped on the muddy sidewalk littered with snow and garbage scraps, to gaze at the procession.

They were being steered through one of the streets of the lower and poorer neighborhoods, those that crowded against the walls of the city, like anthills around a piece of musty caramel. Alleys that had grown over the past decade, twisting and piling up against each other to accommodate the wizards who had been forced to flee their homes, and enlist in the census of one of the necropolis of the new regime.

No one who did not have the proper permits could live outside them. Needless to say, very few could afford to.

As such, life in a necropolis was of an immense difference between those who lived within the walls; The Death Eaters and those who served them. And the miserable ones who had to inhabit the infected labyrinth of the outer circle.

Just earning enough to eat in this area was a daily struggle of hard work in some factory, the gargantuan buildings of the regime, or those small businesses that were still barely getting by.

Under these conditions crime proliferated, and prostitution was the only means of support of more than one person. Of more than one family.

Morality was a scarce commodity in a society that had been poisoned by darkness for ten years. The propaganda of the dark lord, that at first could not erode people's beliefs, had since penetrated to the marrow of this alienated community, and corrupted almost everyone.

The terrorists of the order were considered to be the ones who, through their attacks, forced the king to make people live in one, secure, place. They were the ones that caused their hunger, stealing the provisions that their regime mánaged to gatter. Those who slaughtered their children, husbands and brothers... Since who didn't have a relative among the Death Eaters? The army's cannon fodder fed on the recruits who came from the suburbs.

Thus, when the caravan of prisoners of Hogwarts passed through these place, what they received from the crowd were howls of hatred and anger, pieces of garbage and stones being thrown at them, and blows, when the guards who led the procession towards the open doors in the fort, didn't look at them, or voluntarily and cruelly, looked the other way.

A thick chunk of worn red brick was thrown at them, and Remus curved his body what little the chains allowed, to protect Teddy from the blow.

It slammed into his shoulder with a thud, and the pain flickered through the already battered joint. But Remus barely registered the sensation as one more wound his body was struggling to heal. His recovery rate, being a werewolf, was greater than that of the vast majority, and he was not worried about a few more blows to his already battered casing.

All his attention was on Teddy.

His son kept walking just because Remus held as much of his weight as he could. The boy's soft hair, now of an ashy brown hue, clung to his skull matted with blood and dust, as his striped pajamas hung like rags from his thin figure, dirty from the blood of the wound on his side.

When the castle collapsed, Teddy had been helping the last children to flee. A piece of debris had crushed his collarbone, and when they tried to capture him, a curse had pierced his side. It was a miracle that Remus had found him among the prisoners, before they were chained. However, he had not been able to examine the wound.

The few words he had tried to exchange had been silenced when it became apparent that Teddy needed all his energy to walk. But even before that, his state of shock has been obvious, as he had not uttered a word since they met,

The lycanthrope did not know how much more his son would be able to endure, and he had already seen what the guards were doing with those who were unable to keep up.

A useless slave is the same as a dead slave.

"Papa ..." The voice came out half drowned out in gasps of contained pain, a murmur amid the racket of the angry crowd. Teddy's first word in hours.

"Ssssh. Keep your strength."

Teddy staggered, and Remus had to push him with his shoulder to hold the boy up.

A guard looked at them for a moment, but they managed to move on, and the werewolf was able to relax the sudden tense rope of his spine as the Death Eater turned his back on them. His momentary interest lost, once it was obvious neither were going to fall.

"Papa." his son tried again, weaker.

"Teddy, you have to try and keep walking." It was all he could say now. It was all he allowed himself to think about.

If they managed to get wherever they were being taken, they might be put together in some cell where he could at least examine his son's wounds. Where they could lie down and rest some.

But Teddy did not shut up.

"Dad," he muttered. "I've seen how they killed Mom." - His voice, like an animal run over, dead, and completely broken.

 **oOo**

The black castle rose in the center of the city, Its towers like swords stretching towards the black night sky. Its windows, narrow sackcloths of huge stained-glass, flashed like fatuous fires with the bright light of the interior. From each and every one of the wrought iron needles that crowned the towers, flags waved in the icy air, proudly displaying the shield of the skull and the serpent. Music came out of the building in deceptively beautiful and cheerful notes.

Today the Dark Lord and all his court celebrated the victory. And the rooms had never been so full, the tables of the immense throne room, placed for the party, so loaded with food. Wine had never flowed so freely here.

Guests crowded into the great hall, their dresses and elegant robes, silks and velvets, gleaming under candlelight. Faces obscured by delicate and exquisitely carved, skull masks.

Sitting on the throne, that cursed object of black iron and obsidian, that reeked of blood and viscera, Lord Voldemort himself, proud and undaunted, presided over the celebration.

He looked like a young man, no older than thirty, with glossy black hair and strange serpentine eyes. On this occasion, as in all previous ones, the body he had stolen for himself was an example of physical perfection; Athletic, tall and beautiful.

No one questioned the Dark Lord's aspect, as he had long since made custom of devouring souls, inhabiting a new body for a while, until another drew his attention.

It was common for this to happen once every couple of years.

His eyes, however, always remained the same malicious orbs.

Nagini, his familiar, the huge black snake, curled at his feet, resting her head on his knees, camouflaging within the dark hue of his silk robe.

Nearby, his right hand, Lord Malfoy, the man whose hair was as discolored as his soul, watched the environment behind a mask of ivory and silver, and signaled to the guards to let the prisoners pass.

The hero of the night was to choose his prize.

On the other side of the dark lord, standing at the same height as the icy blonde Lord, another man, obscure as the darkness of the bottom of a pond, studied those who entered from the slits of his mask, made of deceptively simple bone.

No one knew whom was the skull that had given that mask, but rumors had had time to spread through the court in the few hours that this man had been standing next to the king.

Nothing drew the interest of these indolent nobles, like the delicate exercise of the blade the tongue can turn into.

The dark man, as still as a statue, as cold as one, did not listen, and if he did, the words passed by him like mere particles of dust, and just as inconsistent.

When Remus was dragged into the banquet room with the rest of the prisoners, the smells of the ladies' overly strong perfumes, the sweat of hundreds of people and the aroma of food, so much food, as well as the blaring music, and light, pierced his delicate senses, bringing him forcefully back to reality.

The party felt like a nightmare, in which the only thing that made sense was his need to protect Teddy at all costs. The idea ... the notion ... that ... that ...

He could not even think of Ninfadora dead. Tonks, his Tonks, who had kissed him that same morning, still half asleep, with her arms and legs, so soft and warm, tangled in his, her breath on his neck, her curious turquoise eyes locked on his face, and her mane a precious pink hue tickling his nose. His wife, his lover, his best friend, couldn't be dead.

He would not believe it until he saw the corpse with his own eyes. Teddy could be wrong, the shock and blood loss were bound to be confusing.

However, Remus's heart was beating like an out-of-the-way machine, and his body could not move a millimeter away from his son. He did not want to turn away a millimeter. And he knew it was not just because without his support, he would have collapsed. It was the desperate, instinctive need to make sure Teddy, at least, was still here. He could not lose the only member of his little family he had left, he could not.

Guards forced all the prisoners to move until they were deposited at the feet of the Dark King, trapped like a flock surrounded by wolves in front of the long white and pristine marble staircase that ascended to the throne.

Lord Voldemort raised a hand imperiously, and the music, the conversations, everything, fell in silence. Then the terrible Lord stood up slowly and deliberately, his long black robe whispering round his tall, deceptively young figure, and to his thin and distinguished lips a smile as sharp as the edge of a blade blossomed.

"Tonight," his voice rose in the silence like a bat in the night air, perfect and elusive. All the guests stretched out to grasp it, with something akin to adoration. "Tonight, we have overcome those who still dared to oppose us. We have finally united the world under our rightful dominion!" The assembled people broke into a unique south of glory. "And it was thanks to this man. This spy," he said the word with utter malice and calmness, "which has served me so faithfully. His long, clawed fingers, brushed the man's arm in an almost intimate gesture. "That's why tonight I call him my left hand. My new executor."

The crowd erupted in cheers and applause. No one would ask about the man who had occupied the post the day before, rumors of how he had failed his Dark Lord, already flourished in the city. And you just didn't fail the king… and continued alive.

"Now, as I promised," he said in a calmer, softer tone, only for the man who remained as immutable as a stone statue. "Choose whomever you wish."

"Are these all?"

"Yes. I've ordered them all be brought."

The man then descended the stairs one by one, watching the battered, exhausted, wounded, prisoners, clenched tightly together before this court that watched them as flesh to be bitten. And then he raised his hand and pointed at two of them.

"Those two."

Remus shuddered. He knew that voice.

A pair of guards seized him and Teddy, releasing the chains that bound them to the rest of the slaves, to drag them toward the waiting man. Remus did not have the strength to resist, his bones felt watery, his skin icy, his heart seemed about to break inside the box of his ribs.

When they put them in front of him, the scent of the spy's skin came to his nostrils, and with a horrible crack crept through his body in a wave of titanic power, breaking what little of his resistance remained, as if it were paper, soft sand. If the guards had not caught him, he would have fallen down like a stringless puppet.

A single word, filled with horror, left his lips:

"Sirius …"

Pain became something alive within Remus; A poisonous insect, a paper-thin blade. Sharp, toxic, impossible to deny.

Not when the expensive perfumes of the ladies, and the fatty and succulent smells of food, were unable to hide the scent of his best friend; male sweat, tucked into wood smoke and traces of his canine form (damp dog, and alpha male), to which lately had also adhered, the dark scent of blood from the the last battle he fought in.

A smell as familiar as the beating of his own heart.

A perfume that always made him think of fierceness, protection, and brought to his bloodstream that deep brotherly love, they shared (he had thought they shared).

That Black had not changed at all, in spite of everything, broke his heart in pieces.

Remus thought his lungs must be filled with ice chips, because he could not stop shivering.

'... Tonks ... Hogwarts ... Sirius …' His brain was incapable of basing anything coherent beyond the shock.

He couldn't understand what he was seeing. Did not want to understand!

Draco's words echoed inside him like a broken recording; "There's a spy in the inner circle." The pain, so similar to electrodes nailed to his skin, had turned his thoughts into mud.

He felt like an open wound; Bleeding, vulnerable, broken.

Instinctively, Remus sought the blue gaze behind the bone mask, trying to understand, anchor to something. But the indigo irises were not the intense, ever-changing, beautiful blue of the clean sky, he remembered. They were the almost black shade of deep waters, deceptively quiet.

The metaphorical fingers he'd tried to spread, slipped on the icy surface of the frozen pupils, and Remus felt himself losing his last grip on reality. The darkness of shock extending its arms to receive him completely.

Everything that came later dissipated in the nightmare in which the world had been transmuted, and in the suffering that permeated every nerve ending and neural connection of his organism.

His memories fuzzy, disjointed; Teddy hanging like a rag from the arms of their captors, almost unconscious, the imposing figure of Sirius, opening the court on his way in waves of bowing, murmuring people, the shimmering colors of the silks, and the malicious black eyes of the masks, dancing and dancing making him nauseous.

A familiar voice, perhaps Ron's, screaming something in anger, far, far away, somewhere between the tumult of slaves chained as animals.

Vague images such as insubstantial mist, of corridors and stairs. The immense weight of his own limbs. Teddy, the only thing that still pushed him to resist unconsciousness, as shock tried to engulf him in darkness.

His boy already unconscious. The pain filtering inside his organs, bones, brain… as he was pushed, thrown, forced ... like a drugged animal, to his enter a pair of carved metal doors, and to the rooms beyond them.

High ceilings, gray stone walls, and dark wood furniture welcomed them, with the smell of burning wood, rain, and dripping candle wax.

He only managed to crawl into reality, when the guards who held his son began to move away through another door, and the Death Eaters who grabbed him, did not move to follow them.

"Teddy ..." The name slid out his cold lips, barely comprehensible.

His head was spinning. His body trembled uncontrollably under a cold fever. The effort to speak was as unpleasant as swallowing sand. His breathing had become a rough traction, inside the closed walls of his throat, and his tongue felt like a swollen sponge.

But Remus managed to force his body to collaborate, through the limitations imposed by the disconnected state of his mind.

"Where are they taking him? …" His question was not heard, or the Death Eater did not want to answer it. His son was moving farther away, and with each step that put him a little more out of his reach, Remus felt his heartbeat grow more and more frantic.

"... Teddy …" The door began to close after his son ... 'My son.' The notion slippery inside his skull.

His boy, unconscious, bloody, and in the hands of men who smelled of black magic and rust. While he himself was still, soft, dizzy, unable to follow. The agony, terribly intense, began to throb with the beat of his heart, mingling in a delirious litany.

"Teddy ..." he moaned. From the blackness within his brain, indefinite images of the massacre at Hogwarts began to emerge.

Tonks, Sirius ... So much agony...

Suddenly it was hot, so hot ...

The Death Eater at his right seemed to hear him at last, and his complaint must have offended him, for his mouth, beneath the simple white mask that marked him as a Death Eater of the most humble rank, had twisted into an unpleasant grimace.

"Shut up." An order accompanied by the even more violent pressure of the fingers around his arm. Surely there would be marks that would bloom in bruises. But Remus was already very close to drowning completely in the violently red roar of his own blood, and he did not perceive the warning.

"W-where … are they take him?" He asked again, gasping, not knowing if he had come to pronounce the words correctly. Everything was, little by little, reducing to a series of images that came faster and faster, like an horror movie.

The guard hissed resentfully, and his question must have been discernible, because in spite of everything, he was responding. Maybe he hoped it would shut him up.

"A wounded slave is no use."

"A wounded slave is no use ..." Similar phrases he had heard on the march here, bubbled up his raging psyche, and mingled in a corrosive cocktail with all that was already there; Words like useless, defective, unnecessary merchandise ... that had to be thrown away, joined with the memory of the blood of his loved ones, and the cries of the dead.

His reaction was that of a volatile solution; Explosive.

"TEDDYYYYYYY!" The twisted, inhuman sound, that left his throat, startled everyone present.

All those ingredients had been consolidated into a single coherent thought: TEDDY WAS TO DIE. So big and furious, that Remus knew that it would spill out of his skull, and draw with it his sanity.

His body, that until that moment had hung soft and weak like a shredded cloth, from the arms of the two men, stiffened violently, and all his muscles hardened in a second, flooded by the strength of something inhuman. The impossible horror of the thought, and the pain he could no longer contain within his emaciated figure, broke him.

Remus twisted like a wolf in a hunting trap, quick and deadly. Neither of the two Death Eaters had expected it, and they did not react in time to hold him. The werewolf freed himself.

Pain, pain, everything was pain, pain, pain ... TEDDY!

His body curled, the inner beast finally, after years of confinement, and yearning for full moon's light, broke the shackles of his master's will, Remus, and offered his strength, his fierce violence, the thirst for blood, in exchange of freedom and the possibility of saving his son.

Soft brown hair blossomed through his skin. Curved claws and sawed fangs were born in his jaw and in the phalanges of the tips of his fingers. The irises became gold, and the beast roared, instinctively seeking those responsible for his pain.

The creature that had been Remus, threw himself at the Death Eaters. Tearing cloth and skin, destroying everything he could find on his way to the call of the beating hearts of these beings who tried to keep him away from his puppy.

The guards screamed, and one of them howled in pain, like a pig in the slaughterhouse, when Remus' claws cut his cheek in four parallel lines, and pierced the eye socket with a sickening sound of suction to extirpate the eyeball.

The other Death Eater was out of his reach, and he managed to extract his wand to point it to the uncontrolled lycanthrope, wondering why no one had warned them they were dealing with one, and why, none of the slave traders, had him bound in silver shackles instead of the common iron ones that all the prisoners carried.

'Damn it, damn it, dammit!'

"Avada ... "

The fingers of the man who was the dark man's left hand closed on the wrist with which he held his wand, with enough violence to ground the bones in an ominous way.

"Ag! ...Yes ... sir?..." He turned his head toward him, disoriented and incredulous.

The look that the executor gave him made the humble Death Eater shudder involuntarily. He had met many dark wizards, but none with blue eyes like those. Eyes that made him think of sewage, deceptively quiet, and things that lurked in the dark.

"Out." The voice came out calm and icy, not an octave higher than usual, but he didn't need the order repeated.

He was freed.  
There were red marks where the Executioner had touched him, yet, he didn't utter a word of complaint.

Instead he left as fast he could, not looking at his companion left behind. Better him, than his skin.

Sirius heard the door close behind the coward, not looking away from Remus, now crouched over the man he'd knocked down, biting and tearing as the bloody Death Eater continued howling like a wild animal. The movements of his prey were getting clumsy and soft, as it became more and more evident, he was not going to survive.

The screams soon became drowned moans of despair, and moist sounds of flesh being torn.

Sirius had seen Fenrir and his pack enough times to recognize the signs that marked a lycanthrope who has abandoned himself to the beast. And to know that Remus would not be approachable, until he quenched his thirst for blood and the wolf calmed down ... or someone stopped him.

Sirius took off his mask to leave it on the table, as he pulled out his wand.

The werewolf looked up.

"Stupefy."

 **To be continue**

 **Note:** Do you think I should make Sirius want Remus? As in a sexual way?


	19. Torturous friendship

**Notes:  
**  
Hi.  
Sorry for the delay, I have been ill this past week, but I'm better now. So don't worry. Still this chapter feels kind of boring, very little happens. I feel so bad about this.

 **SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 19-Torturous friendship**

Sirius leaned over Remus now unconscious and little by little getting more and more human, as the wolf's features faded.

Then, as he picked the man up against his chest to lift him in his arms, and despite the dark patches of blood on the werewolf's cheeks and around his mouth, despite the tracks of weariness and grief that framed his bruised eyelids, when Black looked down at Remus, he could not help but see the eleven-year-old boy he had meet his first year at Hogwarts.

That boy desperately longing to believe that he could have a friend who accepted what he was, but that did not trust it was possible, and that even two years later, still, sometimes, watched them as if they were going to leave him.

It was…

He grabbed Lupin a little tighter, rising to leave the sitting room.

Behind them the Death Eater's corpse looked with glassy eyes, as they left.

Little did Sirius care, if anything. No one would regret the death of a Death Eater of such a low rank.

House elves would take care of the trash.

 **oOo**

Accommodating Remus in an empty room, so he could sleep and forget for a few hours, didn't take him long.

It took Sirius longer to find the aseptic room of the tiny private infirmary, which now belonged to him as the Dark Lord's executor. Just like all the other dependencies of the north wing of the palace, and their servants.

When opening the door signaled by a small plaque with the name; Infirmary, he found a space without windows, filled by a bed, a small table, the closet containing the medicines and a single chair, in which the Mediwizard had some empty vials, bandages, and a basin full of pink and dirty water, which he was already picking up to get clean.

When he looked up to see his new patron enter.

The man inclined his head politely. Serious and professional. He must have been in the second half of his thirties, and his deep, chocolate brown hair was beginning to show silvery strands at his temples.

Sirius returned the greeting, but did not entertain himself with more formalities.

"How is him?"

In the bed, under the blankets, a lump indicated the presence of someone lying face to the wall.

"I gave him esquelegrow for the clavicle, and a potion for blood regeneration. The wound in his side has been a bit more complex to deal with since it had touched several organs. But in two or three days he should be in working shape." Which did not exclude the patient from continuing to experience pain, but the Mediwizard had long since learned to estimate the time of recovery of the slaves in what was functional, and not in what was optimal for the convalescent.

Sirius nodded briefly, his gaze on the bed.

"And the shock?"

"Taken care of." Simple, cold. "Can I retire now?"

When The Executor gave his permission, Anthony closed his suitcase and left the room without looking back. He felt sorry for the boy inside, but did not intend to stay and see what was going to happen.

Too well he knew what to expect.

Sirius waited for the Mediwizard to leave, before closing the room with a web of anti-spy barriers.

And only when he was satisfied with the result, did he pocket his wand again, before falling into the chair by the bed. His shoulders, for the first time in hours, plunging precariously under a weight, he had not allowed anyone to see.

Beneath the blankets, Teddy held his breath. Yet...

"Teddy, I know you're awake. You don't have to hide." said in the soft, calm, and sympathetic tone of the uncle who had taught him to ride a broom. The one who had brought him sweets hidden in the pockets of his coat whenever he returned from his missions, when getting one was almost a miracle…

"Teddy?"

"How could you?" Teddy's voice cracked, but he wasn't going to cry. He was no child... yet, neither was he brave enough to get out of the blankets.

His face burned with shame and agony, wanting to hate the man who spoke to him, but unable to. The memories of his childhood didn't let him. And not being able to reject the one who had caused his mother's death, was killing him from the inside.

Sirius felt his fist want to close, furious, but he did not allow the gesture to materialize. He was furious, yes, but not at Teddy. And if he allowed anger to be reflected in his countenance, nothing he said would reach his godson. His second godson.

Harry ... Harry was gone, but he could still care for Teddy. Do for him what he had been unable to for his first baby boy.

"I don't expect you to understand. But I hope you will forgive me someday." he offered… since he couldn't speak the truth.

Teddy sat up straight. Those words awakening what was left of his rage under so much pain.

"FORGIVE YOU?! AFTER MOM'S DEAD!? After what you have done?!" His hands tightened convulsively on the sheets.

Teddy's hair looked limp and deadly gray, framing his immense and colorless eyes, making them seem much larger and tragic.

The bandages that enveloped his slender naked torso were as white as his skin, and just as fragile.

Sirius felt how the facade he had been sporting so long, began to collapse with the desire to embrace that boy, who was like the son he never had.

He had never been able to see Teddy suffer, and in that regard, as in many others, the last hours had been a personal hell, which still seemed unable to end.

"Teddy ..." He reached out to comfort him.

"DON'T!" the boy pulled away like a hunted animal. "You got the Death Eaters in Hogwarts! You betrayed Draco! You fooled Daddy into telling things you should not have known!" Tears spilled over his puffy eyes, and rolled down his cheeks, as he shook, trying to contain them. "You ... you ...!" he broke completely down, covering his face with his hands, trying to stifle the violent sobs making his whole body tremble, finally sinking into the open arms of his godfather. His last words a barely discernible murmur. "… I trusted you…"

Teddy had never felt so small, nor so distressed, as at that moment, when he could only think of his mother's disjointed face, before the green light of the curses and the orange reflections of the flames had settled on her skin. Images repeating and repeating in his head, behind his eyes, in his very bones; increasingly distorted and monstrous pictures, degrading like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, burning like acid.

The weight of the hatred he could not feel adding grams every time he recalled the scene, increasing the enormous burden that was gradually crushing him. 

**oOo**

(Sirius)

It was as if all the guilt and grief he had been repressing suddenly escaped in a sweeping torrent, to crush Sirius, once Teddy collapsed against his chest, burying his face in the robe that smelled of slightly wilted things, dog and soap, heartbreaking sobs that turned into hysterical murmurs racking his frame.

Sirius embraced the boy tightly against his body, caressing his sweat-soaked hair, trying to relieve a suffering that was impossible to alleviate.

And yet, despite what he had done, of what he was still going to do, Teddy kept letting him hug him.

Black wasn't sure that he could do anything to break the affection of his nephew. And knowing that he had betrayed someone who loved him so much, soon became his own kind of pain. He felt rotten inside, full of slippery worms of spite, and whispering insects of lies ... he could not let go.

Sirius could only try to calm Teddy, as guilt swallowed him in the increasingly violent sobs of the little boy. And he swallowed up the truth like a bitter syrup, so as not to give it voice.

 **oOo**

(Teddy)

His breathing became hysterical, and he began to feel himself choking on his own saliva, unable to swallow.

A large, paternal hand settled on the curve of his back, softly patting, helping catch his breath, even if slowly, as he closed his eyes and fists, catching his godfather's robe in his fingers, afraid that when he let it go, the man might disappear and abandon him. 

**oOo**

Sirius had believed he had been immunized to the pain of others years ago.

A decade in prison, the loss of his first godson, and the long war that followed, had exhausted his ability to empathize until it was almost unusable. Yet, a tenacious root of sensitivity refused to die, clinging tightly to those few people he still cared for.

Probably because of the rarity of those moments when he could really suffer seeing the agony of another, and because of the dearness of those who were currently able to achieve that effect, the few occasions in which it happened, the sensation was intense.

Almost like rocking the same wounds as the other.

It wasn't nice. But he usually knew what to do to relieve them; With Remus, it was company and hours of remembering youthful moments long past. With Draco, it was expensive alcohol and calm back nights playing magic chess. With Hermione, the last book that would have managed to plunder from his latest mission. With Minerva, calm afternoons by the fire.

With Teddy, Rose and Hugo, there was always a toy, a story, a joke, he could get out from what was left of his dry sense of humor.

With all of them there were always words, and the physical closeness of a loved one, to compete with the last wounds offered by the war. But now, none of his methods could make any difference for Teddy.

Neither the jokes, nor the toys, nor the company, could alleviate the weight of what he had seen, oppressive and terrible. A burden Teddy should never have had to bear.

Sirius felt the snake-like scaly rings of self-disgust, curl around the ventricles of his heart, and rest on his lungs. Teddy's pain echoed in his own flesh, along with Harry's much older echo ...

The only difference was that Teddy was still alive, so that Sirius could contemplate how he was falling apart into particles, until he died. A death of the soul, not so evident, but just as harmful as that of the body. So easy to see in the tension of the infantile anatomy ... In his limbs still thin as a child's, un his brow furrowed in a gesture halfway between sadness and pain. Over his lips pressed in a dashed white line, full of apprehension. And sculpted on pale cheeks and damp eyelashes, which emphasized his suffering like marker.

In his arms, Teddy was just an infant, who had barely begun to reach adolescence, unable to cope with such intense pain. And if Sirius did not lift the weight, he would be crushed by it.

He loved the boy too much to allow it.

That's why he was willing to commit an even greater crime.

"Teddy?"

Teddy closed his eyes harder.

Sirius let his fingers caress the sweaty hair, reassuring. But when he spoke, he did so with a firm voice, so that his godson had something solid to hold on to, and something he could obey without making a greater effort than he was capable of attaining in this state.

"Teddy, I know you're awake. Open your eyes and look at me."

Gray eyelashes quivered, breath became a shaky sound, and the muscles stirred under the skin, before finally the eyelids parted, letting the clear irises appear, light as foam.

"... Uncle Sirius ..." Teddy's gaze fell on his, with the desperation of someone who does not know what to do, or what to believe. Sirius pulled the wand from his pocket.

"Legilimens."

Penetrating Teddy's mind was like sticking through tissue paper. There was no resistance to prevent entry. The barriers separating the intimate thoughts from the rest of the consciousness were made of little more than paperboard pulp and glue, and reaching the deepest parts, was extremely simple.

Inside. The first thing he felt was the touch of water. Cold, painful. Here the sadness was raining in the form of a downpour.

Then he could see, look, under the whip of the storm, the place madera of boxes and things that only had value in the eyes of a child; Scraps of colored fabrics, glossy papers, brass pieces, bird feathers ... that sank into the mud. Soaked, soft, and insubstantial.

Contemplating memories was as simple as sinking fingers into the wet carton that filled the walls.

He saw how Hogwarts had collapsed around the resistance. The children screaming trying to escape. Tonks' desperate effort to save Teddy while the Death Eaters surrounded them. The blood, the screams ...

"Um ..." Teddy whined in his arms.

Sirius watched him, still disoriented by the intrusion, pale and aching. He was puzzled by the memories that nibbled at the marrow of his bones.

At that moment, he decided his godson did not need to suffer, for something that had not been his responsibility.

Carefully, he rested the tip of his wand on her pale temple.

"Obliviate."

 **oOo**

(Remus)

Fear woke Remus.

Tense and paralyzed, his eyes opened a narrow groove, shielding themselves from the painfully intense light of the lamps. The remains of the nightmare that had awakened him, still clinging to his brain, in the form of stale, spongy, immaterial mold.

Another bad dream in a succession, which, with the war, had become more and more frequent, to the point of being a daily occurrence.

The same fears, in the same outfits, repeated over and over again with the familiarity of a bad habit.

And yet this one had been different, more vivid and violent. Soaked in shimmering colors that had nothing to do with the dull brown dyes of his usual nightmares.

He was not accustomed to images of Hogwarts blazing in powerful reds and violent oranges, to the baby-blue of Teddy's pajamas drenched in black blood and white snow, people shouting in purple, howling in green, scarlet pain, and raw fear. Sickly yellow, terrible, and powerful...

The bombardment on his psyche, which was not ready to face the new terrors, made the dream take on a sharper definition than those he was accustomed to. Awakening him with straining nerves, like pork guts put to dry.

Only when in the amber light of the lamps- still a slit between his eyelids- the dreams began to dissolve, did his heartbeat start to calm down, and his quick and agitated breath start deepening. Until finally he was able to push the remains of sleep into the corner of his mind where he put all the memories he never visited, if he could avoid doing so.

Forcing himself to return to reality.

The nightmare had left a ghost of sharp, spongy pain in his bones, accompanied by a muchos more familiar feeling inside his skull, stuffed with imaginary cotton, which he knew, would take a few minutes to dissipate.

He blinked forcing himself to wake up completely, ignoring the heavy exhaustion that tugged at the marrow of his limbs, trying to convince him to close his eyes again. To try to sleep a little longer.

Slowly he opened his eyes completely, his pupils adjusting to the potent orange light in the room.

Overhead, a cream-colored high ceiling like those of mansions or castles began to come into focus and acquire definition. But it's smooth, not grainy gray stone, was not the weared from centuries of use rock of Hogwarts.

His muscles began to tighten immediately, though his senses did not report any sound or odor, out of the spicy fire in the chimney, which might indicate a danger.

'What place is this?'

He turned his head, appreciating the softness and thickness of the pillow, and observed that the room he was in was one of refined taste; broad, windowless, furniture of flowing lines and pale colors.

Suddenly nervous, not remembering where he was, nor how he had come here, Remus began to rise, fighting the momentary disorientation.

This was not normal, he never felt so confused when he woke up. Not unless it was the result of having being unconscious.

Already standing, one hand resting on one of the bedposts, seeking to keep his balance, instinctively he tried to find the last note in his memory.

Everything that Sirius' sleep residual magic had blocked, returned to reopen the wound, which for a few minutes seemed to have ceased to exist.

His joints loosened, as if the memory had cut the cartilage that held them together, and he needed the wooden post to hold up his weight, as his knuckles turned white around the soft cinnamon-colored surface. The only thing he could think of; Teddy.

" ... Teddy …" memories of his wounded son, red blood soaking baby-blue fabric, being dragged from his side by a couple of Death Eaters, woke his beast and made him scream.

"Teddy!" The betrayal of the one who had been his best friend turned the cry into something else." TEDDY! "A heartbreaking scream that came out of his throat like something inhuman.

The last howl of a wounded animal; Challenge, resentment, and a piercing pain, unbearable, impossible to contain or quell.

The change began to tingle, again, under his skin …

 **oOo**

(Teddy)

Teddy opened his eyes wearily, and felt his whole body ache, but in a distant way, like a tickle un his nerves, muffled by potions and spells.

"Dad?" He muttered. Because he did not remember how it was that he had Endesa himself in the infirmary (the aseptic smell of medicines and herbs, said it could not be anywhere else).

"Your father was asleep when I left, but we can go and see if he's already awake."

Teddy blinked and turned his head, recognizing his godfather's voice. Next to his bed, sitting in a chair as white and simple as the rest of the room, which he could now see was not the infirmary of Hogwarts, was Sirius.

The clothes wrinkled, his gaze very tired, but as firm and solid as ever.

His presence exerted a calming effect on the nerves that had begun to tangle in his intestines. His uncle would tell him what was happening and where they were.

"What happened?" He mused raspy, his tongue feeling dry in his mouth.

Sirius rested a hand on his pale fingers, spread on the pristine sheets, warm and large, protective. With the other he offered a glass.

The fresh water did Teddy good. 

"Don't you remember? Although it was to be expected as strongly as you hit your head. "Sirius said, as he laid his other hand on his godsons forehead, kindly.

Teddy shook his head no, feeling calmer, listening blindly.

"Hogwarts has been attacked and we have had to disperse. I'm so sorry, Teddy, but until things calm down and we can contact the order, we'll have to stay here. Your father, you and me."

" ... and mom? …" the boy's voice came out small, even if not even him knew why. "Is she okay? and the others?" His brain was filled with them, not even registering the humiliation of his godfather seeing him tremble for the first time in ten years.

As in those nights when his parents were out on a mission, and it was Sirius's quiet voice and big hands, the warmth of his chest, the one who lulled Teddy, so he could sleep without nightmares.

"They are well, left before us." An answer that might have been made of tissue paper, so soft and light, as it had been spoken.

Yet, it eased the weight of Teddy's fears, with deep relief.

 **oOo**

(Remus)

"TEDDY!"

"… Dad? Dad! I'm here. I'm here." his baby's scent got into his lungs, even before his brain registered the warm weight of a little body against his chest. Thin, fragile, arms, around his back. And small hands with delicate fingers, buried in his shirt.

The contact acted as an instant balm.

Relieving the wrath of the wolf, which had begun to stretch beneath his flesh, and arousing his paternal instinct, now that his son, his pup (the beast murmured), was where he should be. Safe. By his side.

The discomfort under his dermis, which heralded the beginning of the change, did not disappear, but it dwindled into a threat, more than the certainty it had been only a minute ago.

" ... Teddy …" Remus whispered inhaling the scent that gave off his soft hair; Clean, the aseptic aroma of medicines, and the salt of dry tears, which he could still scent.

"Papa ..." The whisper, a word muffled in his shirt, where Teddy had sunk his nose, was almost inaudible. But with the wolf so close to the surface, Remus had no difficulty catching it. "Why did you yell?"

"I thought you were taken away," he murmured. One hand buried in his son's hair, holding the small skull. The other on his back, where he could feel Teddy's heartbeat, and the rhythmic cadence of his breathing. "How are you?" asked Remus, unable to loosen the hug enough, to study his wounds. He felt that if he allowed it, Teddy would slip between his fingers like sand, until he disappeared.

Perhaps it was only anxiety, but after all he had seen on this last nightmarish day, his instinct was the only thing that seemed to remain sane.

The little body lulled into his chest, sharing the same need. And Remus held him a little closer, calming his baby boy, and calming himself, with the certainty of being close.

"I'm fine. Uncle Sirius took me to the infirmary." Teddy answered "I will hace tiempo rest a few days to fully heal, but it hardly hurts."

"Uncle ... Sirius?" A nasty shiver ran down Remus's back, and between the stumps of his spine, like tiny poisonous insects with sharp legs.

He looked up.

Teddy nodded.

But Remus no longer studied him, but the other man, dark, standing in front of the door, like another shadow, he had not noticed until now.

"Sirius." The sound was three strangled syllables.

"Remus." A whisper.

Black, who had been his best friend, looked bad.

His blue eyes rested in deep basins of mauve shadows, and there were bags under his tired eyelids. His black hair had spread around his face, and over his shoulders, in a tangle of tufts, as if he had run his hands through them nervously and compulsively. His clothes were the same ones from the night before. Luxurious and still clean, but full of wrinkles. The man must have slept in them, if he had at all, as his greyish skin spoke of insomnia.

If he had closed his eyes, it had been for very short time.

And yet, his posture was that of an individual prepared to be hit; Straight back, legs slightly apart, arms free on both sides of the torso, and face impassive, calm, and scrutinizing.

Teddy caught the strange, sudden, stillness of his father, and turned around so he could look over his arms at his uncle.

The animosity between the two adult men was impossible to ignore. The anxiety, materialized again, like a hard blow between his ribs.

"Uncle Sirius ...?" His father pulled him closer to his chest, now hard with the tension he could feel building up in the muscles beneath his shirt. The tight embrace, on the verge of being painful, made Teddy feel even more nervous, nearly hysterical.

His father's words only made him more frantic.

"What have you done to him, Sirius?" The sound more a grunt than something else, pronounced as it was between clenched teeth.

Sirius made no move to respond. But Remus knew his masks well; There was a great weight on his old friend. A weight that could well be measured in flesh and blood.

Anger burned within him like acid, and yet so many years of friendship created reflections that were difficult to eradicate. Seeing the dark man, so clearly suffering, made Remus want to lend his shoulder for support, and his arms as a refuge.

But he clenched his teeth and silenced that need, in the embrace with which he was holding his son.

"What did you do to him?" He repeated.

Sirius's gaze shifted for a moment to Teddy, who watched his godfather with the huge eyes of a frightened child, full of restlessness and confusion. Not knowing what to think, or what to believe. And Remus could see that the one he had considered his brother in heart, if not in blood, didn't want his son to hear this conversation.

"Speak," he hissed. If he had had the courage to sell everything they had fought so hard to protect, he might well have it now to confess one more betrayal. And Teddy needed, as much as he did, to know what they were up against.

Sirius looked at Remus; Furious and wounded, the beast that so seldom could be seen in the serene man, present and alive, like a whisper behind his irises, not only brown, but tinged with feral gold.

In the end, the accusing gaze of the one who had been his best friend, was heavier than his desire to keep his nephew out if this. After all, these were words that the boy would sooner or later come to know. Now, or later, from his father's lips.

Still, they were only words, and even if they hurt, they would never hold the terrible pain the memories he had removed had.

This time he didn't try to avoid answering.

"I've erased his memory of what happened. It was better this way." He left without saying that the memories of what he had seen, would have killed Teddy. He kept for himself what he had seen in them, so as not to hurt father and son more than necessary.

Remus had already lost Tonks, what could be good about losing his son too? This way, he could keep a half of his family.

From the betrayal of his best friend, he would recover. Sirius knew that Remus would not let himself be broken when his son needed him so much. But losing Teddy? Of that, his friend would not recover.

And Sirius would have made much more sinful things than erasing some memories to keep Remus whole.

"It was best for him." 'It was the best thing for you' he left unsaid.

Lupin frowned, suddenly, somehow, confused.

In the sudden stillness, the light of the fireplace had time to be noticed; An amber gleam in his brown hair, and the werewolf's tawny eyes. Remus' face began to lose his anger, gaining in pain, in agony.

"Why are you doing this? If you didn't give a damn about anything ..." he swallowed, trying to find words to describe what he'd seen. The horror he felt, the pain that was pulling inside him like a deep-drawn hook. Remus's pupils were beginning to feel damp, and there was an agonizing sting in his throat, which he did not let himself acknowledge. "Why don't you want him to suffer?"

The muscles in his arms flexed under the skin, with a thought of their own, as if confirming that Teddy was still there. A warm weight against his increasingly agitated chest. Breathing was beginning to be a strange exercise, interrupted by the tightening knot in his throat, and the desire more and more intense, to break into sobs, or in hysterical screams.

Teddy seemed to have been silenced by the scene, and he just stared at the development with huge, crystalline eyes, filled with tears and confusion.

Remus looked into Sirius's gaze, searching for something he hoped he would not see, and yet was there, just as it had always been, just as he had always thought would be, until the very day he could no longer look inside the blue surface of those eyes; care. Love. Not the same one he knew in Ninfadora's ever-changing eyes, not ardent and dancing, but warm and permanent. And that should not be there, in the eyes of a genocide and a traitor.

It would have been easier to find just cold, or hate.

Indifference would have hurt more than resentment, but it would have made more sense.

This ... this hurt a lot more.

Because he could not understand or reconcile the man he thought he was seeing, with whom he had seen standing by the dark lord.

"Why?" He repeated in a choked, almost broken gasp.

Sirius curled his fingers, not allowing himself to form a fist, just to keep them away from his friend. Comfort was not something he could offer now, even if he wanted to with all that he was.

Words was what Remus needed to hear. And Sirius knew what he was going to give, even if it was not what Sirius wanted to pronounce, nor what Remus would want to hear.

He composed an expression even more cold, solid and difficult to interpret, to accompany them.

Surius forced his voice to a calm modulation, which was as far from his feelings at that moment as water was of blood.

"We were losing the war. To be honest, we had lost it a long time ago." He thought about Harry, his tomb empty of body, because the beasts of the forest must have devoured him. And let that ice of loss, reflect in his eyes, and the edge of his mouth. "We were dying, little by little. And Remus," Cold, so cold, his shoulders squared gently, almost imperceptibly. "I'm already tired of watching those who matter to me die."

"Sirius …" Just his name. Remus swallowed hard, but he could feel the dampness on his cheeks, where tears had begun to fall, despite his fierce desire to retain them.

"This is not the best way, I know. But it's the only one." and this was true now, so true, that agony could not describe the sensation it caused him. "... The only way I found, to save you."

Remus was breaking inside, again and completely, without Teddy in his arms, he would not have known how to hold on. Guilt, grief, and anger were a crushing weight.

"Save us? What about Hermione? About Ron? Draco?" Draco, who now he knew, had almost died because of Sirius. That maybe was dead already. "And what about Tonks?" A whisper, almost unable to utter her name. "What about all of them, Sirius? What about all the people who lived at Hogwarts?"

Sirius didn't move, nor did he react, as empty and hard as stone. Only his eyes seemed alive now, but the pupils had swallowed the iris, and the inside was the black of tar and rotten things.

"I could not save them all. But if Rose, Hugo, Hermione or Draco, appear alive, I will protect them as I have done with you."

Remus gasped breathlessly.

"... And Ron?" He remembered his cry when Teddy and he had been dragged behind Sirius. The redhead was alive, perhaps now in the labyrinth under the castle, probably being tortured.

The one who had been his friend did not speak. But the answer was obvious.

"... you have not forgiven him for Harry. Have you?" He hesitated. He knew instantly that he shouldn't have talked about it, not now, not after so many years of avoiding it.

Sirius looked at him with eyes too black and poisonous to be the friend he remembered. And though it should have made him feel better, the vision only made the heartbreaking sensation inside him even more unbearable.

"No, I have not forgiven him."

Tears slid more copiously down Remus's cheeks, but did not erode the protective pose he kept around Teddy.

"What he did is no worse than what you are doing now." He mouthed.

"... I'll get you some dinner."

"... Sirius..." But the other had left.

 **To be continued**


	20. Family matters

**Notes:**

Hi again.  
Last week I was feeling terribly down, not happy at all with my work, even with all your fantastic help. But now I'm not so sad, and I wanted yo thank you, my few readers, for being there even in my bad times.  
This chapter is kind of a prelude for the next one, where Harry and Draco will come back. Just a little further to wait.

 **SPIDERWEB**

 **Chapter 19- Family matters**

Not an hour had passed since the party, dull and opaque to his eyes, started, when a servant approached one of the three seats at the head of the long banquet table, to whisper in Lord Malfoy's ear a message come from the dungeons.

Someone was requesting his judgment in assigning destiny to a newly brought prisoner.

The boy had not been able to give him more information than that. But the fact that the person in charge had sought his presence, accepting the risk of bringing on himself the wrath of the Dark Lord's second, that annoying Lord Malfoy might attract, told much about the importance of the captive ... or the stupidity of his captors.

And yet it was not this that made the blonde aristocrat rise, but the relief of finally having an excuse to retire.

A few words later, the Dark Lord granted him permission to leave.

 **oOo**

Under the mole of the black castle there was a tangle of corridors that spread like rotten roots through the subsoil of the city. And just like the vegetable appendages, these corridors also contained nutrients. Those necessary for the maintenance of the regime:

Inside, like roes attached to the walls of the tunnels, cells were cradled, where new slaves were educated into lifting the titanic works of the state, and attending to the vitiated elite of the system. 

However, these were not the only dependences of the dungeons.

Marginally cleaner and better-built pantries, housed the magical creatures they rarely managed to capture. Their skins, bones, muscles, blood, and organs, thin and hollowed out, where they had been plucked to make potions, wands, and other valuable goods.

And there too, between cells and pantries, were the rooms ... whose insides stank of fear, urine, and plasma; Dead things in a state of putrefaction, bile and decomposition. Places with diverse uses full of tools according to them. Yet, if someone were to name them with a single label, the most suitable word would have been torture rooms.

The pungent stench that came from them filled the whole complex. It turned the air thick and difficult to breathe. Permeating everything that entered the grimy net, clinging to the nostrils like a foul-smelling slug.

Once inside the prison, it was almost impossible to ignore the stench. Those who worked there learned quickly that if one did not have a sturdy stomach, paying attention to it only sharpened the awareness of nausea, to end up overflowing in vomit.

Not many accepted the work of jailer, few of lasted long enough to get accustomed to the smell, and fewer were those who maintained a facade as composed as the one displayed by Lord Malfoy, those occasions when he was forced to go down there.

Like now.

With ease born of practice, Lucius allowed the emanation to pass through his lungs, largely ignored, all his attention centered, not on what had brought him here, but on the state of his wife.

The sooner he finished, the sooner he could return to her.

So it was no wonder he did not catch the other, much weaker, scent, hidden beneath the usual stench, until it became utterly impossible to ignore.

When he was already before the entrance of the cell to which he had been summoned, and next to the guard who kept ir.

At such a short distance, not even his own self inflicted ignorance of the nauseating smells of the place, nor the monstrosity of old wood, dry and hard, like sheets of tasajo, that made the door, could hope to hide it any longer.

The sudden uptake caused a violent shiver between the first layer of his skin and the second; The human dermis and the chitin. A biochemical impression of racial recognition, which scaled his temperature several degrees, in what could have been called an instantaneous fever, if he had been remotely human.

Lucius fell totally still.

That place buried in the depths of his mind, always present in his viscera since that night a decade ago, was hit by the scent and broke, opening like a shell. A sensation, almost forgotten after so long, of pain, was released from within and spilled through his muscles like too hot butter.

At the same time the smell that had flooded his nostrils crawled through Lucius's nerve endings to his neurons, igniting the acidity of betrayal and the frozen agony of abandonment. Awakening, with brutal efficiency, the memories he had tried so hard to bury.

His whole organism, suddenly, awake, when it had not been during what had seemed an eternity, capturing the world through a thin cloth of insensitivity, reacted with a catastrophic intensity, which the mask of frozen calm he always carried in public, could not sustain.

All the air left his lungs suddenly empty.

His right hand settled absently on the rough surface of the door, seeking a point of support that would prevent him from bending in half. The fine, aristocratic lips creased in an unpleasant grimace, and the fingers of his left hand curved into a fist, hiding a sharp desire to tear something.

"Mr Malfoy? Are you alright?" The sentinel, too young for jail work, too inexperienced to know how to act, came forward to offer his help, entering his freckled presence in the personal space of the predator.

The proximity of a wizard, a human, in his state, resounded as a discordant annotation throughout Lucius's organism. The instinct to protect and attack, curving in his stomach like an acid snake.

But the blonde had not lived so long with secrecy, making mistakes as stupid as changing in a place where he could be discovered.

Stopping the instinct to pounce left a dull ache in his gums, and a burning sensation in his muscles, which aggravated the agitation that was already running over his nerves.

"Get back to your post." The voice that came from the pale throat had the iridescent quality of broken, hard, inflexible, sharp glass.

"Yes ... yes, sir."

The boy pulled away, returning to his place, nervous and restless, like one of those little dogs who don't know exactly what they are afraid of, and that carry the survival instinct of a worm.

Lucius took air deliberately, forcing himself to find calm that felt more like an imposition, than like nothing he really wanted. Curving his fingers above the door, so he could feel the rough and dry hardness of the surface ... as a distraction from to the painful intensity of what he just wanted to forget.

When suddenly another smell, much more tenuous, made its way through his neurons and through the impact of the first recognition, to sink deep into his gut; The acrid, almost metallic aroma of blood.

The blood of a member of his nest.

Protective instinct burst forth unexpectedly, like lava from a volcano. Burning and destructive. He shivered from his bones to his dermis, in a convulsion that was not visible to the guard, only because Lord Malfoy had such iron control.  
The only external sign of the tsunami, was his breathing, which got stuck in a harsh gasp for a few seconds.

Then, his hand left the wood with slow deliberation.

And all weakness died out of his countenance, as the widow clothed himself in the most basic instinct of his kind; the protection of his family.

The smell on the other side of the door, and inside his lungs, pounding inside his ribs like a second heart, had begun to pour through his veins a continuous litany of: help him, help him, help him... yet, instinct had not removed the unhealed pain of abandonment. Only relegating the ache to the background of his mind ... for now.

So, when a second later, he gradually placed his fingertips on the handle, it was a more instinctive, rather than voluntary, movement, that served to precipitate him forward like the first stone of an avalanche.

With one word, the great mass of wood and iron spun on its hinges, allowing Lord Malfoy's entrance to the cell.

"Make sure we're not disturbed." He ordered the guard without turning.

"Yes sir!"

Lucius came inside.

The door closed behind him.

 **oOo**

The room was little more than frozen stone, covered by a crust of infected dirt, under the agonizing presence of a few torches almost consumed. A place without windows, where iron rings anchored to the walls, and chains secured to the floor, were the only decoration.

"Lord Malfoy." A fat man came forward obsequiously to greet him, from where he had been looking at something lying on the floor, next to another Death Eater who seemed to be his companion.

The two men were different, yet very similar, like copies from two artists of the same work. Where one was curvy and short-limbed, the other was angles and spiked limbs, but their faces had the same raw cruelty, and the same gesture of stupid superiority, which often concealed a bestial behavior.

Easy to predict, easy to dispatch.

Lucius accepted the greeting gracefully, avoiding looking at the prisoner thrown on the ground, knowing the risk such a vision offered. As watching a member of his nest wounded, might raise a reaction he had not yet decided what form was going to take.

"I suppose you caught the creature?" He inquired calmly.

The fat man nodded, immensely satisfied.

"Of course we did. A, both of us are glad your highness has been able to come personally, as we had to insist much for the chamberlain to take our notice. But it was worth it. You are here after all." He smiled, showing two rows of square yellowish teeth. "Would not want this discovery to reach anyone else's ears before yours."

Obviously because such low-level Death Eaters could not hope to be heard by the Dark Lord.

Lucius felt momentary thankful for his luck, a caress of gratitude to destiny, for being the first to be informed.

The man continued talking, terribly proud and insistent, unaware that the blonde was no longer listening to him.

"Did you say you did it alone?" The aristocrat interrupted the tirade, trapping the little man with his icy gaze.

The Death Eater swallowed nervously, vermin under the eyes of a predator, recovering with a feigned cough that confirmed the suspicion of the aristocrat.

"Yes, yes, us. There were more people involved, of course, but they did not survive." The man looked at the bloody lump lying on the ground. "It's a very vicious animal"

These two were alive to be proud, just because they had been cowardly enough to wait for the creature to be on the ground, and incapacitated, before getting ahead to win the prize. Lucius could see it in the sweat of their greasy skin, and the neurotic tick of their fingers. It would not be surprising to find that those wizards, already exhausted, who had been actively involved in the capture had been killed by them.

"Anyone else, apart from you, know what you have captured?"

The other Death Eater, thin and silent as a corpse until that moment, who had not moved from his place next to the creature, spoke at last, to answer the dubious look sent by his companion.

"No, Lord Malfoy, no one. We brought him wrapped in that blanket, so he wouldn't be seen before now." And pointed to the bloody and cracked with dirt thing Lucius had not noticed before, abandoned as it was in the shadows at the far corner of the cell.

"What an excellent idea." Sarcasm bubbled in his words, like some toxic effervescence on a sooty potion.

They had taken a lot of trouble so no one would steal their prize. And if it had been any other creature the one brought, of any other equally rare specie, Lucius would have ignored his own reluctance, to notify his master of the find, with the knowledge that the Dark Lord would be immensely satisfied. Enough so, as to bathe in wealth the two men who had brought him, and enjoy a good mood for at least a few days.

But in this case, the two Death Eaters had made a mistake by looking for him as a messenger, and another much more serious one, by being so greedy as to hide the news. Slides that finished crystallizing the decision, which he had already known, would eventually take.

Lucius calmly extracted the wand from his pocket. Slowly and deliberately.

"You did a good job."

The chubby Death Eater displayed himself proudly even more if possible, ignoring the tone that should have been his first and only warning.

He never saw the curse come.

"JOHN!" Shouted the other, fumbling for his own wand. Slow, terribly slow.

A second green flash lit the cell, and the squalid body collapsed on the floor like a bag of dried bones, just a few feet from the first.

"I was wondering how long would you to take to kill them." The voice that came from the bundle lying on the floor was broken and exhausted, yet filled with sharp sarcasm. Strong in spite of everything. And familiar ... as familiar ... as oxygen, or the earth beneath his feet.

Lucius would have recognized it even if centuries had passed. A decade was nothing, it could not dent the memory of his brother's venomous intonation.

The sound awakened in him a longing and a grudge, almost painful. And when he spoke his name, it was in a resonance more torn from his throat, than toned by his own will.

"Severus." A murmur more than a word, doubly charged with resentment.

He did not turn to look at him yet. Torn by the knowledge that Severus was the one who had decided to leave his nest, broken his family, and destroyed his home. But also with the certainty that he had not done so because he had stopped loving them.

Lucius could not lend him his help, now that the immediate threat no longer existed, nor abandon him.

And the effort of not having a clear decision, was shattering his self-control.

He could feel his own epidermis turn white second by second.

"Draco is alive. "A phrase ... and it's perfectly built façade collapsed.

The feelings Lucius had buried at the back of his skull when he learned that his son was a traitor, came back to the foreground, seeking a place in the human self from which he had originally ripped them off; The pain of betrayal, the immense concern of knowing what awaited his son if he was caught, the affection, the resentment, and finally, the agonizing certainty that he could not have survived the entrance to the dark forest. The total weight of grief.

Lucius turned slowly to look at Severus. A thousand words in his throat, and nothing sure to say. The desire to believe a luminous spark in his clear eyes.

Half human, half-spider, the black slytherin was a mishmash of both, with long arms scrawny like insect legs, and elongated hands ending in slender claws like sword blades.

That was all Lucius would have called vaguely healthy, or recognizable.

There was red and yellow green blood, half-clotted and sticky. Pieces peeled and cracked lines, all over the black chitin that covered his naked body shot down on the floor. The broken muscle and chipped bone could be guessed at irregular intervals between the wreckage of the outer layer, coming out id the meat in small bony mother-of-pearl protrusions, and red flesh,where the solid metal of the chains did not anchor him to the ground.

His hair fell into filthy, untidy locks around an emaciated face, dominated by arachnid fangs covered in green liquid, seemingly painfully void of venom. Black eyes were like wells looking through the tangle of his hair, impossible to read ... for those who had not shared with him, the intricate encounter of the spiders.

The pain and the almost silent sizzle of yearning inside the indigo black, were for the blonde as easy to see as painful to assimilate. Like a physical blow to the solar plexus, they left him breathless, yet gave him words he wanted to utter.

"Where is him?" Love and hope became syllables, as they bleed from his lips against all the instincts of his human self.

"Release me and I'll take you with him."

 **To be continued**


End file.
